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WASHINGTON,
D.C. – U.S. Representative Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) issued today’s “Bush Administration’s
Misstatement of the Day” in response to President
Bush’s 4/13/04 Primetime news conference.
Pre
9/11 Intelligence:
President
Bush said: “I wanted [George] Tenet in the Oval Office all the time. And
we had briefings about terrorist threats… The way my administration
worked …was that I met with Tenet all the time.”
At
today’s 9/11 Commission hearing, however, CIA Director Tenet testified
that he did not speak to the President during August 2001, the same month
that the President received a Presidential
Daily Briefing titled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.”
According to AP:
Questioned
by former Rep. Tim Roemer, D-Ind., Tenet said he did not speak with President
Bush during August, 2001, a period marked by concern over possible terrorist
attacks. "He was on vacation and I was here," Tenet said, although he also
added that he could have picked up the phone and called the president at
any time if he had felt a need to do so. (AP, 4/14/04)
Iraq
and Weapons of Mass Destruction:
Asked
to respond how his Administration got it so “wrong” that “Iraq not only
had weapons of mass destruction but, as Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld said,
‘we know where they are,’” President Bush did not answer the question,
and instead repeated his claim that one of the reasons the United States
went to war with Iraq was because Saddam Hussein “refused to disarm.”
But
according to Bush’s former weapons inspector, David Kay, there remains
“no
evidence Iraq had stockpiled unconventional weapons before the U.S.-led
invasion in March.” (CNN, 4/14/04)
Homeland
Security Department:
Responding
to a question about whether he felt any “personal responsibility for September
11th,” President Bush said he grieves for “the incredible loss of life,”
and added: “It's easy for a president to stand up and say, now that I know
what happened, it would have been nice if there were certain things
in place. For example, a Homeland Security Department.”
However,
for months after the 9/11 tragedy, President Bush had opposed the creation
of a cabinet agency for homeland security. (CNN, 6/6/02)
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