OPENINGS AND CLOSINGS

Opening Statements today at the REGJB in State v. Lebron, the horrific kidnapping, murder, sexual assault case where the prosecution is seeking the death penalty. Reid Ruben, Christine Zahralban,  and Laura Adams for the the prosecution, Jeff Fink for the first phase and Raphael Rodriguez for the penalty phase for the defense. 

What did Bush Know and when did he know it? 
Kurt Eichenwald in the NY Times Tuesday says that the president's team had more advance notice beyond the infamous August 6th briefing where the president was told "Bin Laden determined to strike US." 

The problem: The CIA was warning the president and his team of an impending attack, while the "Neo-Cons" who had their eyes on unfinished business in Iraq, were dismissive of the warnings. A clear case of not wanting to believe what you don't want to believe, despite what the evidence shows:  

By May 1, the Central Intelligence Agency told the White House of a report that “a group presently in the United States” was planning a terrorist operation. Weeks later, on June 22, the daily brief reported that Qaeda strikes could be “imminent,” although intelligence suggested the time frame was flexible...

But some in the administration considered the warning to be just bluster. An intelligence official and a member of the Bush administration both told me in interviews that the neoconservative leaders who had recently assumed power at the Pentagon were warning the White House that the C.I.A. had been fooled; according to this theory, Bin Laden was merely pretending to be planning an attack to distract the administration from Saddam Hussein, whom the neoconservatives saw as a greater threat...

In response, the C.I.A. prepared an analysis that all but pleaded with the White House to accept that the danger from Bin Laden was real.

“The U.S. is not the target of a disinformation campaign by Usama Bin Laden,” the daily brief of June 29 read...

On July 24, Mr. Bush was notified that the attack was still being readied, but that it had been postponed, perhaps by a few months. But the president did not feel the briefings on potential attacks were sufficient, one intelligence official told me, and instead asked for a broader analysis on Al Qaeda, its aspirations and its history. In response, the C.I.A. set to work on the Aug. 6 brief.

So here is what history is showing us: an administration that started a war with faulty intelligence about Saddam Hussein having WMDs, was also an administration that allowed the United States to be attacked because it ignored increasingly frantic warnings from its intelligence agency. Why were the warnings ignored? Because they didn't fit within the foreign policy/political goals of  select members of the administration who, having worked for Bush 41,  had a decades old score to settle with Saddam Hussein- who we now know presented no threat to the United States. 

If President Obama and his team made even one of the mistakes that riddled the Bush administration, they would be called traitors and Republicans would be crying for their arrest and prosecution. 

The more things change...

See You In Court.