Testimony of Condoleeza Rice

TESTIMONY OF CONDOLEEZZA RICE

I am not here to address that issue. As head of our Task Force on National Security and Homeland Security, I am here to respond to the testimony of adviser Condoleezza Rice. The hearings we have had and Condoleezza Rice's decision to testify is all to the good. To quote from the Scriptures, the truth shall set you free, and this Commission-half Democrat, half Republican-has endeavored, is endeavoring, will endeavor to find the truth.

The bottom line is the Commission is bipartisan. The people on it tend to be those who look at things not as Democrats or Republicans but as experts, and the Commission is needed. The bottom line, too, is we should not look to this Commission for pointing fingers of blame. It is very easy, in hindsight, to say this should be done or that should be done, and I do not object to the fact this administration-or I understand the fact this administration and others made mistakes. Everyone in America made mistakes. So that is not the problem with the testimony of Condoleezza Rice.

The problem is something else. Unfortunately, we did not hear from Adviser Rice three important words: We made mistakes.

Of course, we made mistakes. This administration made mistakes. The previous administrations made mistakes. The inability of this administration and of the National Security Adviser to admit mistakes were made makes us fear we will make future mistakes because, after all, the only way we are able to understand what went wrong is to first acknowledge it and then say we are going to correct it.

We may not be dealing with al-Qaida in the future. We may be dealing with Chechnyans or East Timorese or skinheads. Unless we realize what went wrong and why we failed to pick up the warning signs, we are less likely to pick up future warning signs that could create even greater terror than the terrible terror on September 11 that befell my city.

Is it for sure that had everything been done right we could never have prevented 9/11, as Adviser Rice says? I doubt it.
There are six facts that, if they all were to be put together, would have clearly pointed the arrow at what happened.

First, 12 intelligence reports throughout the 1990s showed terrorists would use planes as missiles to attack American targets.

Second, upon entering office in January, Dr. Rice read a memo from Dick Clarke indicating there were active al-Qaida cells in the United States.

Third, in the summer of 2001, there was a threat spike about terrorist activities against American targets, including hijackings and warnings that something very big was about to happen.

Fourth, on July 10, 2001, a document was sent to FBI headquarters in Washington from Phoenix, warning several Islamic militants had enrolled in flight schools in Arizona and positing that al-Qaida was trying to infiltrate the U.S. aviation system.

Sixth, we missed warning signs from Special Agent Rowley in Minnesota about Zacarias Moussaoui, an Islamic radical who was getting special aviation training.

Finally, on August 6, a White House briefing memo to the President stated, "bin Laden determined to attack in the United States," which was specific examples from the FBI of al-Qaida moves against Americans.

If, if, if, if on August 6 word went from the White House out to the FBI and all of the intelligence agencies, go turn over every rock and find out what al-Qaida is up to, it is very conceivable we would have been able to figure out what they might be doing, certainly disperse some of the terrorists, two of whom were known to be in the United States, from doing what they had done.

Is it a certainty? Absolutely not. Is it a possibility? For sure. To say it would be impossible to add up these signs and figure out what happened is dead wrong, as it would be dead wrong to say it is a certainty you could figure that out.

So the bottom line is simple. It is not the fact this administration did not try very hard on terrorism, because in the eyes of Security Adviser Rice they did. It is not the fact certain things were missed. They were missed by this administration-and let me underscore previous administrations-but it is the fact this administration, the President and his advisers, have this inability to say mistakes were made, under our watch and under previous watches. That leads to an attitude that we do not correct the problems.

Every parent knows when their child makes a mistake, they try to get the child to understand they made the mistake and maybe they will not do it again, but somehow we have this stonewalling and that is the most destructive fact.

Right now we hope and pray the messy situation in Iraq ends and ends quickly and that our Armed Forces can do the job against such bad people as this Sadr leader, but if the eyes of the administration were more open to what had been done wrongly in the past, maybe we would be better off in Iraq today. I say that as somebody who has been largely supportive of fighting the war on terror, voting for the war in Iraq.

What bothers me most about the testimony of Condoleezza Rice and the actions of this administration is not that they did not do everything right. Who could ask anyone to do that in this brave, new, post-9/11 world? But there is an inability to want to gather all the truth and figure out from that truth what was done right, what was done wrong, and improve and make things better.

The one lesson we learned in Vietnam is when our leaders did not accept the truth, it made matters worse. When our leaders failed to admit mistakes, it made things worse. Unfortunately, today's testimony shows an inability to admit mistakes were made and move forward and correct those mistakes and make America a more secure place in the future. I hope and pray it changes.

I yield the floor.