MR. FLEISCHER: Good afternoon. Let me give you a report on the President's day, and then I also have the week ahead. The President this morning had his usual round of briefings. And then he met with the Prime Minister of Slovenia, where they discussed bilateral issues between the United States and Slovenia. They discussed the upcoming Prague Summit about NATO expansion, as well as the broader regional issues involving Bosnia, Serbia, and bringing peace and stability to the region.

Then the President, as you know, presented the Commander-in-Chief's Trophy to the United States Air Force Academy. Later this afternoon, the President will deliver what he considers very important remarks on the importance of helping senior citizens get prescription drug coverage as part of Medicare. The President is determined to help strengthen our nation's Medicare system for our seniors while getting them prescription drugs and affording seniors more options and more choices as part of their Medicare plans.

And then the President will make remarks on Asia Pacific American Heritage Month in the East Room, and then he will depart the White House for Camp David, where he will be for the weekend.

Q Ari, I'm wondering, how can you and other White House people cry foul or accuse the Democrats of playing politics with this issue when on Tuesday you were up here defending the Republicans' right to sell a photograph of Bush on 9/11 as a fundraising tool, and when Karl Rove in January said Republicans should use the President's handling of the war on terrorism to their political advantage.

MR. FLEISCHER: Number one, that's not what Mr. Rove said. Number two, the administration -- and, I think, the American people recognize that that photo represented the President doing his job on behalf of the country. The President did not criticize the opposition party. The President did not intimate or hint that the opposition party had prior knowledge of the attack on September 11th, and then try to say that the opposition party had information that they should have done something about. It's a totally different measure, Randy.

Q Two questions. First, Dr. Rice laid out yesterday what the administration was hearing and concluding about threats to U.S. and U.S. interests overseas during the course of last summer, and it seems there was a lot of urgency within the administration. Granted that hindsight is 20/20, does the President believe that he and his administration communicated to the American public effectively enough the kind of urgency that Dr. Rice described was in the administration during the weeks leading up to September 11th?

MR. FLEISCHER: Let me draw your attention to a series of things that the President said publicly, and actions that the President took. In fact, you can begin by going back to the President's speech as a candidate, at the Citadel on February 23rd, 1999. If you recall, that's a speech that the White House handed out to you in the aftermath of September 11th, because in many ways, it showed the priority that this President was bringing to office about the need to fight terrorism. And he said in that speech at the Citadel, "And there is more to be done preparing here at home. I will put a high priority on detecting and responding to terrorism on our soil."

In March, on March 4th, 2001, when the President went to participate in the christening of the Ronald Reagan, in Newport News, Virginia, the President said, "Our present dangers are less concentrated, and more varied. They come from rogue nations, from terrorism." And he went on.

And finally, the President on May 8th, in a statement that you all have, issued a statement about domestic preparedness against weapons of mass destruction. And that was a warning from the President about protecting America's homeland and citizens from the threats of weapons of mass destruction, as one of our nation's most important national security challenges.

Beyond that, Terry, in the realm of action, this is why -- one of the reasons why once our nation was hit in this attack on September 11th, we were able to respond so quickly. In the events leading up to September 11th, and over the course of the first year, or the first nine months of this President's administration, the President came to Washington determined to do something more fundamental about terrorism, because of the threats that it poses to our interests abroad, as well as to Americans here at home.

And as a result of a process that involved the CIA, the Department of Defense, the Department of State, the National Security Council, a national security presidential directive was developed and prepared throughout 2001, that was approved by what's called the principals committee, which is essentially Cabinet level officers involved in national security, on September 4th, 2001.

That document was then finalized on September 10th. It had not yet gone to the President. That national security presidential directive was a comprehensive, multifront plan to dismantle the al Qaeda. It involved a direction to the Pentagon to develop military options for the dismantling of al Qaeda. It involved action on the financial front to dry up their resources. And it also involved working with our -- with the Northern Alliance, in an attempt to dismantle the al Qaeda.

The President was aware that bin Laden, of course, as previous administrations it's been well-known that bin Laden was determined to strike the United States. In fact, the label on the President's -- the PDB was, "bin Laden determined to strike the United States." And in another piece of this, it was just something that has been well-known to you all, is that the creation of the Office of Homeland Security was something that was planned even before September 11th, as Senator Feinstein has reminded her colleagues.

Q Why has the White House persistently tried to delay any major investigation, so that the American people and everyone else can get to the bottom of what the cause was? It will be Monday morning quarterbacking, fair enough. But at least we'll know what the truth is.

MR. FLEISCHER: With all due respect, that's two out of three mischaracterizations of what the President has said.

Q You have tried to stall it, haven't you? You don't deny that, do you? Surely. Daschle has said repeatedly that he's been asked -- he's been asked repeatedly to not go ahead with an investigation.

MR. FLEISCHER: Helen, let me remind you of the words of the Vice President, what he said last night, because --

MR. FLEISCHER: Well, Helen, let me answer your opinionated question. The Vice President said last night in his speech up in New York that, "We believe that a thorough investigation of the events that led up to September 11th is entirely appropriate, and at the President's direction I've worked with the leaders of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees to ensure that they get the necessary cooperation from the Executive Branch.

There was some discussion earlier this year, at the time that the Congress was wrestling with how to begin an investigation into what took place on September 11th. Congress itself debated in what form this investigation should take place. That's not a surprise. Any issue involving jurisdiction on Capitol Hill, in terms of who gets to investigate what, is typically one of the most contentious issues within the members of Congress themselves.

There were a variety of different viewpoints expressed by Democrats and Republicans on the Hill. Some wanted a blue-ribbon commission that involved people who are not serving in the Congress. Others wanted a broad investigation which would have created a super-committee that would allow people off the Intelligence Committees to investigate. And others wanted to keep it limited to the Intelligence Committees, which have an expertise in working with the very issues presented.

The final determination made by the Congress, supported by the administration as we talked with them earlier this year, was precisely what's happening now, that the Vice President expressed our support for.

Q Are you denying that the administration -- are you saying the administration did not try to delay any investigation?

MR. FLEISCHER: The administration made it clear to the Congress that we supported an investigation so long as it was done in a responsible way by people who had the expertise to know how to handle it. The administration made clear to the Congress that we are a nation at war, and that the key participants from the Central Intelligence Agency, from the FBI, and from the military have vital ongoing missions to protect our country, and we wanted to make certain that those who are doing the investigation were expert enough and cognizant of the fact of the current war-fighting duties of the personnel involved, so that this did not become a fishing expedition or another endless waste of taxpayer money in an open-ended congressional investigation. And we worked --

Q Ari, in fact, Senator Daschle did say yesterday that on several occasions, on more than two occasions, that the Vice President asked him to delay or block any congressional investigation. He said on one occasion that the President asked him to do that, at a breakfast meeting. Are you now saying that they weren't asking to block an investigation, they were just specifying what kinds of investigation they wanted? And if so, how many times did they make that request?

MR. FLEISCHER: What I made clear is that there were discussions with Congress about the need to make certain, particularly in the early stages of the war, that the people who were engaged -- 100-percent attention needed to be on fighting the war -- that their efforts would not be distracted at that point, at that moment in an investigation that could take them away from their immediate duties. We made it clear that we support an investigation so long as it's done by the responsible people and done in the manner that would be -- allow for the experts to have access to the information.

MR. FLEISCHER: Well, we'll always work with Congress. We're going to continue to work with Congress on what they are working on. And the method that the Congress has set up right now we believe is the appropriate method and we're working very well with them.

But, Bob, I think it's fair to say Congress doesn't know how it feels about all these matters. Congress is still grappling with it; there are difference of opinions in the Congress. Again, I spent a lot of years working on the Hill; one of the most controversial issues for members of Congress, themselves, to face is who gets to sit on what forum because they all want to sit on the forums, and it's a jurisdictional issue where they typically will disagree with each other. And that's why the Intelligence Committees are working productively, and that probably is the best way to ascertain the information that the American people are entitled to.

Q Are you willing to work with Congress enough to turn over the FBI memo from the Phoenix office --

MR. FLEISCHER: We're aware of the request from Congress; we'll continue to talk with them about it. And I anticipate that talk will continue.

Q And to follow up on this memo, this presidential directive, granted it was only the ninth month in office, but if that memo and that plan had been able to be carried out a month sooner, two months sooner, could it have potentially prevented 9/11? And in the same token, if the attack had taken place in October or November, instead of September, and the plan had been put in place, could it have stopped it?

MR. FLEISCHER: Ron, that's a hypothetical, there's no way I can give you an accurate answer to a question like that. I wish I could. It's a hypothetical. I think everybody wishes the attack could have been stopped, prevented, and the lives could have been saved. Everybody in both parties.

Q In hindsight, if it had been possible to have that plan in place a month, two months --

MR. FLEISCHER: Ron, it's a hypothetical. And the fact of the matter is, the administration moved very quickly and thoroughly, in a very full way, involving the military to dismantle the al Qaeda, which was a fundamental change, the issue of dismantling al Qaeda.

Q Without suggesting that it could have been prevented, but we are talking about things that may have fallen through the cracks. And I believe you were asked about this this morning; I wanted to follow up -- a study that was done by the Library of Congress -- are you familiar with what I'm talking about?

Q Okay, it was at the request of some government agency, but there's a very clear sentence here where it talks about al Qaeda's retaliation to Cruise missile attacks against training camps in Afghanistan, and it says, "Suicide bombers belonging to al Qaeda's martyrdom battalion could crash-land an aircraft packed with high explosives into the Pentagon, CIA Headquarters, or the White House."

MR. FLEISCHER: Okay. What Campbell is referring to, which came to my attention and to the White House's attention just two hours ago, or so -- is a September 1999 psychological and sociological evaluation of terrorism. It's an unclassified document that's been available on the web for years, apparently been available on the web -- at least it was prepared years ago, and it's available on the web. And it gets into how terrorists think. I don't think it's a surprise to anybody that terrorists think in evil ways, in unimaginable ways, and it describes several of the ways. It was not -- the way this document --

MR. FLEISCHER: -- this document was described, it is not piece of intelligence information suggesting that we have information about a specific plan, or that they are going to. It describes -- the title of the report, if I recall, is, "The Psychology and the Sociology of Terrorists." So it describes their evil -- their thinking. It was --

MR. FLEISCHER: I don't know who requested it. I know it's a Library of Congress report, so, obviously, this is --

MR. FLEISCHER: I don't know who requested it, but the point I was going to get to is I think this is -- over the last two days, we've seen increasing signs of how much information was available to members of Congress. It's a Library of Congress report from --

Q But, Ari, Campbell's point -- there's a broader point here, no matter who this document -- the document is based on, if you look at the footnotes and the attachments to it, on existing government documents, existing government testimony, public records about what is known about these organizations. You have, from the podium, and Dr. Rice yesterday quite forcefully from the podium, said hijacking before September 11th meant a different thing than hijacking after September 11th. But if there is public record from investigations overseas, investigations in the United States, analysis including this one by government employees that people knew -- and Dr. Rice, herself, said these people were training to hijacking airplanes and the United States government knew that. No one around -- people find it incredulous that no one around the President, when the word, "hijacking" appears in an analysis report, said, I wish we knew more, because these lunatics have talked about flying planes into buildings. And you say no one brought that up.

MR. FLEISCHER: John, I think you're, again, applying in the post-9/11 world the reality --

Q No, this is pre-9/11 material. Nobody -- nobody -- either in the President's CIA briefings or in a principal committee said, you know what, these lunatics have talked about flying planes into buildings.

MR. FLEISCHER: Campbell's point is exactly right -- this report, in 1999, about the thinking of the --

MR. FLEISCHER: Wait a minute, let me get to the point I'm making. Campbell's making a very valid point here, that this report from 1999 about the thinking, the psychology of terrorism, was available in 1999 to members of Congress, the previous administration, it existed in some form which did not come to the attention of this administration when we took office on January 20th. And I think what it shows, Campbell, is this information that was out there did not raise enough alarms with anybody; that it suggested, because it was not intelligence information, it was their thinking, a sociology/psychology; that the people in 1999 didn't see this and bring it to anybody's attention, people on the Hill didn't. And John, as I indicated, the White House didn't.

Q -- not just thinking and psychology. It is testimony in criminal cases, brought by the United States government, and brought by other governments, against suspected terrorists. My point is not, was this specific report brought to the attention of the President. Your position is that no one in any period of time before September 11th, in any discussion of al Qaeda, said, you know, there's a lot of evidence out there that these people have talked about flying planes into buildings.

MR. FLEISCHER: This is absolutely right. I have not heard anybody indicate that to me, and you've heard that from the President, himself.

Q Just on that, wasn't there a widely-read book, I forget the name of the novel, which described just such a thing? Had nobody in the White House read that book? (Laughter.) Is the President at least concerned or disappointed that nobody could have thought of such an idea?

MR. FLEISCHER: I think Democrats and Republicans and everybody around the world is saddened and disappointed that we were unable to prevent an attack that took place in our country. Nobody can dispute that, Keith. But as the President said today, that if he had specific information that terrorists were planning to use those airplanes to attack our country, he would have taken the same action that any Democrat or Republican in the White House would have taken. Those are the facts.

Q You're indicating that you're welcoming an investigation. Yet the President today talked about this being a town of second-guessers. Vice President Cheney last night apparently said that some Democratic criticism was thoroughly irresponsible in a time of war, and we're going to be in a time of war for quite some time. Aren't you simultaneously trying to chill an investigation at the same time you say that you welcome it?

MR. FLEISCHER: Absolutely not. But there are relevant points to be made about the professional manner in which the investigation should be conducted. And on that point, I want to bring something to your attention that illustrates some of the language and the statements that were used or the suggestions by members of Congress yesterday that the administration might possibly have had information that it did not use or the President did not use.

And this is something -- there have been several responsible -- many responsible things said by Democrats. Senator Bob Graham of the Intelligence Committee, Senator Lieberman, Senator Feinstein. Senator Feinstein, in July of 2001, on CNN, on Wolf Blitzer's program, said, and I quote -- "Intelligence staff have told me that there is a major probability of a terrorist incident within the next three months." She continued, "The Vice President, when he spoke to the Democrat Caucus, mentioned that the administration was going to be working on the issue of homeland defense around that particular issue -- the point being the administration, prior to September 11th, as shared with the Democrats, was already moving on the homeland security front.

But the point I'm making vis-a-vis the statements by these Democrats yesterday that the President may not have acted on information that he had -- clearly, if Senator Feinstein, a Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, was aware of this, the question arises, what did the Democrats know and why weren't they talking to each other?

Q Who said these things? Who are you talking about on the Hill? Who acted in a manner, as Vice President Cheney said last night, "unworthy of national leaders in a time of war"? Who are you talking about?

MR. FLEISCHER: Well, I think that anybody who made insinuations or suggestions that this President had information that could have prevented the attacks and did not act on them is asking questions in such a way as to create an impression that the President could have and should have done something that he didn't do.

MR. FLEISCHER: Well, I think it's fair to say that individuals in the Democrat leadership -- and let me also bring your attention to something that should be reflected on when it comes to the politics of this. And you can draw contrasts by how leaders act and leaders respond to something like this. When there was a suggestion that Bush knew about this in print, Bush knew about 9/11, Mayor Bloomberg of New York said that suggestion was ridiculous. He contacted the White House, he listened, heard what information the White House had. He called it ridiculous. He united New York City, and he led.

I have to say, with disappointment, that Mrs. Clinton, having seen that same headline, did not call the White House, did not ask if it was accurate or not. Instead, she immediately went to the floor of the Senate, and I'm sorry to say that she followed that headline and divided.

Q Ari, what's the mood of the President right now about all this? It sounds like he's angry.

MR. FLEISCHER: I think it's fair to say that the President understands that in Washington, D.C., second-guessing is second-nature to a lot of politicians. The President also understands that there are a lot of responsible people in the United States Congress -- I've just cited many of them -- and the President is going to continue his efforts to unite this nation to work in a bipartisan way, because that's what the American people expect from their leaders in Washington. He has a war to fight, and he's going to continue to fight it in a way that brings people together.

MR. FLEISCHER: He's focused on his business. As I indicated, he has an important speech just after this about giving prescription drugs to senior citizens.

Q Ari, the President of Sri Lanka in New York at the United Nations, and her country is also fighting terrorism, a group which has been banned by President Bush. And for the last two years, last year and this year, she has been trying to meet President Bush or come to the White House, since we had so many Prime Ministers and Presidents here. But she was told twice that it's too late.

Q The President of Sri Lanka. And she said that this year also she called, that she wanted to stop by the White House, but she was told that too late. And last year also, same thing. And -- what I'm saying is really that she's also fighting against terrorism, and she is part of the coalition against terrorism, and President Bush banned the group --

MR. FLEISCHER: This is the first I've heard of that. I'll be happy to look into it.

Q And second question, then, following that, the Indian Ambassador here in Washington in the U.S. is a little upset at the number of few congressmen, like -- and Congressman Dan Burton, that they're inserting misinformation about India in the Congressional Record on a regular basis. And this time is the first time that the Washington Times and the India Globe reported that they have taken the step, because this issue has become, in the Indian Parliament and also across America. If the President is aware of this information, how can one stop that, while he's calling on everybody that --

MR. FLEISCHER: Goyal, I can only describe to you what the President has done here. And as you know, the President called the Prime Minister of India to express his condolences about the recent attacks. They have a very good relationship. I cannot speak about anything involving members of Congress in this regard.

Q Yes, Ari, I have two questions for you. The first one has to do with the Office of Homeland Security. You have said it from the podium, Dr. Rice said it yesterday, it's one of the positive steps the White House has taken after September 11th to combat terrorists. My question is, is the President going to do something to reinforce the role of Governor Ridge? I know he sits in at all the major meetings and he's involved, but there's also -- this is a city of turf battles. Is the President going to create a Cabinet job for Mr. Ridge, or what is the President going to do to give him more power?

MR. FLEISCHER: Number one, the President is very pleased with the job that Governor Ridge is doing. He has a very difficult job involving the coordination of the various agencies. And he believes he's doing it very, very well. Congress has some different ideas about the possibility of creating a Cabinet post, and we're looking at those ideas.

Regardless of whether a Cabinet post of homeland security is created, Congress will get itself right back into the same issues, about what entities will get removed from what existing agencies, and moved to a Cabinet-level homeland security. And I predict to you, that will be no easy matter for the Congress to wrestle with, because they'll find how difficult it is to move an entity from one place to another, particularly given the jurisdiction of the Appropriations Committees on the Hill, where they don't like to give things up.

But we'll work with Congress to try to get that matter explored, to protect the country. But you raise -- go ahead, ask your question.

Psssst...
I heard they might use a "suitcase nuke". If they do, can we say that we were warned.

New Top Secret US Defense Plan:

1. Make a list of all the possible weapons that terrorists could use
2. Make a list of all the cities they could attack.
3. Get a calendar and make a list of all the days they could attack.
4. Prevent them all. (but you can only spend what the Dems will allow after paying for their stupid crap)

OK, go to it... we can now disband the CIA.

Where are all the "peaceful" Muslims in America. We've got plenty of soap boxes ... they should be denouncing these rediculous acts of terrorism. We need to see American Arabs making citizen's arrests! We need to hear from local Law enforcement that the collaborators are being rooted out by fellow American Arabs. Even if there are only a few extremists in each city in America. We know they are there, and Arab Americans know who they are. The country cannot stand to see the left defend people who won't defend themselves.

OK, half-dog, you really believe that anyone thought that towel-head nutcakes would suicide-bomb buildings prior to 9-11. Even the *$%^#)(&*(* ^ hijackers didn't know. Hijacking yes, Missiles no. There is a huge difference.

Do you think just because we knew that Russia had nukes back in 1982, that was enough to defend against them.

You are using MurryMom logic on this issue.

Where did Time's information come from? The government.

WHO in the government was Time quoting? Was this another anonymous source? If not, name names here, if so, how do you know how reliable they were? Because of how 9/11 happened? It is possible that this person or these persons actually inspired the events of 9/11, rather than predict them.

All those happened, by the way, on Clinton's watch and he did absolutely nothing to prevent them, or even in response (which is inexcusable).

I completely agree. Even worse was when Clinton, who had an opportunity to have bin Laden delivered on a silver platter by Sudanese officials in 1996, he refused.

Yet you slam Bush for not doing something to stop al-Qaida terrorists when he was given no "specific" details of anything. All we knew was that terrorists under the leadership of Osama bin Laden were out to get us.

The plans were known back in 1993. That's 9 years. Bush of course is not responsible for failing to act back then. But to say that there was no ability for the Bush administration to reduce the likelyhood that such an attack would succeed is simply spin.

The trend in government (to their eternal shame and discredit) is to reduce freedom in the name of "security."

The opposite has always resulted in more safety. Allowing pilots to carry arms, dropping restrictions on law abiding citizens would have been a great way to start.

You can yell "no way!" all you want but that single act would have undoubtedly put the odds in the favor of innocent American citizens who payed the price for such restrictions on their liberty.

This administration and others previous have decided that when you and I are faced with terrorists, we should be relegated to using our seat cushions to fend them off rather than our legally owned firearms or knives.

Explain the difference between hijacking and hijacking.

I shall try to explain to the most closed-minded among us the difference between these TWO terms:

Hijacking (pre-911) was mainly a scholarly pursuit, taken up by wackos who wished to negotiate a deal by taking hostages and creating an international incident;

Hijacking (post-911) is a previously unbelievable act in which turban-headed misfits willingly give their lives in order to murder innocent civilians who are living the very life that if they had any idea what life could be like, they would leave the hellhole they are presently living in, and move to the USA in a heartbeat.

Understand the difference, half-dog?

The fact that nobody had initiated a suicide attempt using a commercial airliner is a non-issue relating to hi-jackings.

Getting control of the airplane is the issue. Whatever works in preventing hijackings is what the government should have done. In the 70's the fact that a hijacker had no idea which aircract might have an armed citizen was a strong deterrent. Box cutters are alot more lethal than seat cushions which is why they were so successful on 9/11.

...Mayor Bloomberg of New York said that suggestion was ridiculous. He contacted the White House, he listened, heard what information the White House had. He called it ridiculous. He united New York City, and he led.
I have to say, with disappointment, that Mrs. Clinton, having seen that same headline, did not call the White House, did not ask if it was accurate or not. Instead, she immediately went to the floor of the Senate, and I'm sorry to say that she followed that headline and divided.
Without a doubt, this is the highlight of the entire press briefing!!!

...(FreedomLoving_Engineer)

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New Top Secret US Defense Plan:

1. Make a list of all the possible weapons that terrorists could use 2. Make a list of all the cities they could attack. 3. Get a calendar and make a list of all the days they could attack. 4. Prevent them all. (but you can only spend what the Dems will allow after paying for their stupid crap)

1. Make a list of all the possible weapons that terrorists could use
2. Make a list of all the cities they could attack.
3. Get a calendar and make a list of all the days they could attack.
4. Prevent them all. (but you can only spend what the Dems will allow after paying for their stupid crap)