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LoxisNoxis Copyright 2002 eMediaMillWorks, Inc. (f/k/a Federal Document Clearing House, Inc.) FDCH Political Transcripts May 16,2002 Thursday TYPE: NEWS BRIEFING LENGTH: 5572 words HEADLINE: CONDOLEEZZA RICE HOLDS NEWS BRIEFING ON PRE-9/11 INTELLIGENCE INFORMATION SPEAKER: CONDOLEEZZA RICE, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER LOCATION: WASHINGTON, D.C. BODY: NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER HOLDS NEWS BRIEFING ON PRE-9/11 INTELLIGENCE INFORMATION MAY 16, 2002 SPEAKER: CONDOLEEZZA RICE NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER

RICE: Good afternoon. I'm going to give you a chronology of the events that occurred during the spring and summer of 2001, but I want to start with a little definitional work. When we talk about threats, they come in many varieties. Very often we have uncorroborated information. Sometimes we have corroborated but very general information. But I can tell you that it is almost never the case that we have information that is specific as to time, place or method of attack. In the period starting in December 2000, the intelligence community started reporting increase in traffic concerning terrorist activities. In the April-May time frame, there was specific threat reporting about Al Qaeda attacks against U.S. targets or interests that might be in the works. Now, there was a clear concern that something was up, that something was coming, but it was ^ principally focused overseas. RICE: The areas of most concern were the Middle East, the Arabian Peninsula and Europe. In the June

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Content and programming Copyright 2002 Cable News Network Transcribed under license by FDCH e-Media, Inc. (f/k/a Federal Document Clearing House, Inc.)- Formatting Copyright 2002 FDCH e-Media, Inc. (f/k/a Federal Document Clearing House, Inc.). All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to Cable News Network. This transcript may not be copied or resold in any media. CNN SHOW: CNN INSIDE POLITICS 16:00

May 16, 2002 Thursday Transcript # 051600CN.V15 SECTION: News; International LENGTH: 9244 words HEADLINE: Condoleezza Rice Holds Press Conference About Terrorism Warnings Prior to September 11; Some Democrats Say There is a Lack of Leadership in the Administration; Senator Shelby and Senator Graham Say Bush Acted Responsibly GUESTS: Bob Graham, Richard Shelby BYLINE: Candy Crowley, Jonathan Karl, David Ensor, John King, William Schneider, Wolf Blitzer HIGHLIGHT:

A panel discusses what the Bush Administration knew about Osama bin Laden's threat to the U.S. before September 11. Then, Condoleezza Rice holds a press conference, addressing questions from the press on this issue. Finally, Senator Shelby and Senator Graham give their reactions to the conference and discuss national security. BODY: THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

CANDY CROWLEY, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Candy Crowley in Washington. National Security adviser Condoleezza Rice is scheduled to hold a briefing shortly. We will carry it live. She will face many questions about terror warnings received by the Bush administration before September 11. The White House confirms that President Bush was warned during an intelligence briefing last summer, that Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network might try to hijack a U.S. airliner. Spokesman Ari Fleischer says the information was vague and there was no indication that jets would be deliberately crashed. He says the White House took appropriate steps in response to that warning and others that surfaced last summer. But many lawmakers of both parties want to know why this information wasn't revealed much earlier. We have with us a cast of characters here to help sort through this story while we await the briefing. Jonathan Karl on Capitol Hill. Jonathan, is that the main complaint on the Hill, that why wasn't this information put out there earlier?

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[j Content and programming Copyright 2002 Cable News Network Transcribed under license by FDCH e-Media, Inc. (f/k/a Federal Document Clearing House, Inc.)- Formatting Copyright 2002 FDCH e-Media, Inc. (f/k/a Federal Document Clearing House, Inc.). All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to Cable News Network. This transcript may not be copied or resold in any media. CNN SHOW: CNN WOLF BLITZER REPORTS 17:00

May 16, 2002 Thursday Transcript # 051600CN.V67 SECTION: News; Domestic LENGTH: 7773 words HEADLINE: 9-11 Warnings: Who Knew What, When? GUESTS: John Edwards, Saxby Chambliss, Mark Foley, Bill Lyon, Lou Cannon BYLINE: Wolf Blitzer, Kelly Wallace, David Ensor, Richard Roth, Ash- Har Quraishi, Fredricka Whitfield, Jeff Flock HIGHLIGHT:

Special edition: 9-11 warnings, and who knew what and when? BODY: THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Now, on this special edition of WOLF BLITZER REPORTS: 911 warnings. Who knew what, and when? (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ARI FLEISCHER, WHITE HOUSE SPOKESMAN: The administration received heightened reporting on threats. (END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Did the White House drop the ball? Congress wants answers. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think it should have been acted upon, but it wasn't. (END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: It looked like 9-11 all over again in skies over Sydney: Why some Australians went into a panic. Israeli forces may have foiled a double-suicide bombing. I'll take you to places where the

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Content and programming copyright 2002 MSNBC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Transcription Copyright 2002 FDCH e-Media (f/k/a/ Federal Document Clearing House, Inc.) ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. MSNBC SHOW: THE NEWS WITH BRIAN WILLIAMS 21:00 May 16, 2002 Thursday TRANSCRIPT: # 051601cb.453 SECTION: NEWS; INTERNATIONAL LENGTH: 7428 words HEADLINE: Did Bush Administration Know About 9/11 Beforehand?; Ground Zero Cleanup About Finished; MSNBC BYLINE: Brian Williams; Campbell Brown; Pete Williams; Jim Miklaszewski; Tim Russert; David Bloom; Kevin Tibbies; Lester Holt GUESTS: David Gergen; Evan Bayh; Stansfield Turner HIGHLIGHT: How Much of the 9/11 Terrorist Attack did the Bush Administration Know about Before it Happened?; Clean up at ground zero is just about finished. Finally, BODY: THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOTBE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

BRIAN WILLIAMS, MSNBC NEWS ANCHOR: Tonight, what did they know and when did they know it? The Bush White House with a lot of questions to answer about the various pieces of the puzzle that the president was briefed on prior to September llth. Who was told? Could more have been done? (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CONDOLEEZZA RICE, NAT'L SECURITY ADVISER: We knew that they were -- that they had thought about hijackings in a number of places. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why did it take eight months for us to receive this information? ARI FLEISCHER, WHITE HOUSE SPOKESMAN: The president did not - not receive information about the use of airplanes as missiles by suicide bombers. (END VIDEO CLIP) ANNOUNCER: For NBC News, this is THE NEWS WITH BRIAN WILLIAMS.

WILLIAMS: Good evening. Remember how quickly the White House and the intelligence establishment in this country seemed to know that September llth was the work of Osama bin Laden? That's because it turns out there were indications that something was coming. All we know for sure is this. There were sniff (ph) reports, fragments of information that bin

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.ABCNEWS.com : Bush Warned of Hijackings Before 9/11

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White House officials acknowledged that U.S. intelligence officials informed President Bush weeks before the Sept. 11 attacks that bin Laden's terrorist network might try to hijack American planes, and that information prompted administration officials to issue a private warning to transportation officials and national security agencies. In a press briefing, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said the threats were very general and did not mention a specific time, place or mode of terrorist attack. Rice described a chronology of events detailing the how agencies dealt with the information about terrorist threats and how Bush was informed. Officials, Rice said, were primarily concerned that the attacks would take place overseas in the Middle East, the Arab Peninsula and Europe, and thought terrorist groups would choose a more "traditional" mode of hijacking. They thought terrorists would hijack an airplane and hold passengers captive and demand the release of one of their operatives. The FBI, Rice said, reported that there was no way to predict a terrorist attack domestically, but that it remained a concern. In July, there was a heightened sense that there would be an attack because of unrest in the Middle East, and officials were concerned that terrorists were targeting Paris, Rome and Turkey, she said. The Federal Aviation Administration became so concerned it issued

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Copyright 2002 Bergen Record Corporation The Record (Bergen County, NJ) May 17, 2002 Friday All Editions SECTION: NEWS; Pg. aOl LENGTH: 1862 words HEADLINE: TERROR ALERTS PUT BUSH AIDES ON DEFENSIVE; FROMBOTH PARTIES, QUESTIONS OVER WHITE HOUSEDECISIONS SOURCE: Wire services BYLINE: RON FOURNIER, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS DATELINE: WASHINGTON BODY: With Democrats in Congress leading impassioned calls for answers, the White House on Thursday defended President Bush for not disclosing intelligence before the Sept. 11 attacks that Osama bin Laden wanted to hijack U.S. airplanes. "You would have risked shutting down the American civil aviation system with such generalized information," said national security adviser Condoleezza Rice. "You would have to think five, six, seven times about that, very, very hard. " As politically charged hearings loomed, the White House scrambled to shield Bush from damage, and Democrats sought to exploit a potential crack in the president's record-setting popularity. Worried aides dispatched an extraordinary number of senior advisers, including Rice and Vice President Dick Cheney, to public venues as the controversy mushroomed. "What we have to do now is find out what the president — what the White House — knew about the events leading up to the events of 9/11, when they knew it, and, most importantly, what was done about it," said House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt, DMo. Rice said the intelligence, tucked in a 1 1/2-page terrorism report given to Bush during an Aug. 6 briefing while on vacation in Texas, mentioned Bin Laden's al-Qaeda network and "hijacking in a traditional sense" — not suicide hijackers slamming fuel-laden planes into American landmarks. "The most important and most likely thing was that they would take over an airliner, holding passengers, and demand the release of one of their operatives," Rice said. The report discussed a variety of methods terrorists might deploy against the United States, including biological and radiation weapons, sources said. Democrats and some Republicans pressed Bush to hand over the top-secret CIA analysis given to Bush on Aug. 6 and release an FBI memo written even earlier that warned headquarters that many Middle Eastern men were training at at least one U.S. flight school. White House officials were divided over whether to release them. Republican Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, vice chairman of the Intelligence Committee, said, "There was a lot of information. I believe and others believe if it had been acted on properly, we may have had a different situation on Sept. 11. " Bush had no public comment

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Copyright 2002 The Chronicle Publishing Co.

The San Francisco Chronicle MAY 17, 2002, FRIDAY, FINAL EDITION SECTION: NEWS; Pg. Al LENGTH: 1605 words HEADLINE: White House defends decision not to publicize hijack warning; VAGUE GENERALITIES: Rice says there was was no hint of plan to use planes as missiles SOURCE: Washington Bureau Chief BYLINE: Marc Sandalow DATELINE: Washington BODY: Intelligence reports last summer suggesting that terrorists might be planning to hijack airplanes were so vague that the White House never considered alerting the public, National Security Adviser ^^ Condoleezza Rice said Thursday. President Bush's top security adviser offered a fuller explanation of the information available to the president prior to Sept. 1 1 as concerned lawmakers demanded a full investigation of what the president knew and when he knew it. Rice said the "volume of chatter" among suspected terrorists had spiked last summer but that most of the threats were seen to be in the Middle East and Europe. While general information surfaced that Osama bin Laden was interested in hijacking planes, no one envisioned anything resembling the Sept. 1 1 attack. "This government did everything that it could in a period in which the information was very generalized, in which there was nothing specific to react to," Rice said at a news conference hastily arranged to respond to media reports that Bush knew more than he had previously acknowledged. "Had this president known of something more specific, or known that a plane was going to be used as a missile, he would have acted on it." DEMOCRATS ASK QUESTIONS Some Democrats suggested that the new revelations could fundamentally alter the public's view of Bush's role in handling the terrorist threat. Why did it take eight months for the White House to acknowledge that the president had advance warning of potential hijackings, and why was this information not more widely distributed? Democrats asked before microphones and television cameras on the floor of the House and Senate. Though some Republicans joined in the call for a wider investigation into the intelligence failures, most

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Copyright 2002 Bulletin Broadfaxing Network, Inc. The Bulletin's Frontrunner May 17, 2002 Friday SECTION: Leading The News LENGTH: 13783 words HEADLINE: White House Defends Response To Pre-9/11 Intelligence Reports. BODY: CBS (5/16, lead story, Rather) reports, "The Bush Administration spent this day trying to explain what President Bush knew about terror threats before the September 11 attack on America, why he never shared what he knew with the public, and why US intelligence could not — in the phrase of the day -- 'connect the dots,' and possibly prevent the attack. This follows the story CBS' David Martin broke on this broadcast last night, that President Bush was told in August that Osama bin Laden might be planning an attack involving the hijacking of US aircraft. The White House now insists there was no indication an aircraft would be in effect turned into a missile." CBS (Roberts) adds, "It was a revelation the White House had no intention of making public. And officials spent the entire day in full damage control, insisting last August's [briefing] about possible al Qaeda hijackings contained no specific threat." CBS adds, "National security advisor Rice claims intelligence pointed only to traditional hijackings, where al Qaeda may attempt to trade hostages for prisoners; specifically the Blind Sheik who masterminded the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center. Airlines were given a routine notification by the FAA to be on alert for hijackings, and watch out for a new generation of weapons to carry them out." Rice was shown saying, "They were concerned about some reports that the terrorists had made breakthroughs in cell phones, key chains and pens as weapons." CBS adds, "CIA officials say they had plenty of good intelligence on the structure and strategies of bin Laden's network — even knew he was planning a major strike — but they were missing a critical piece of the puzzle." CIA Deputy Director of Operations Jim Pavitt was shown saying, "We never found the tactical intelligence, never uncovered the specifics that could have stopped those tragic strikes that we all remember so well." CBS adds, "The White House today argued the August intelligence report is being viewed through a post-9/11 prism in which hijackings have a completely different meaning." White House spokesman Ari Fleischer was shown saying, "I think it's fair to say that if I walked up to you in August of 2001 and said, 'We have information that Muslim extremists seek to hijack American airplanes,' you'd have said, 'So what? Everybody's known that for a long, long time.'" ABC News (5/16, lead story, Jennings) reports, "All over the country today people are wondering whether the White House knew more about the possibility the country would be attacked by Osama bin Laden's terrorists." ABC (Moran) adds, "The August 6 briefing memo was 1 1/2 pages long. Near the bottom of it came the analysis that Al Qaeda could attempt hijackings in the US. The big question, what was done with that information? Administration officials said today during the summer of 2001 there were at least a half dozen advisories issued by the FAA to the aviation industry to be on high alert, primarily overseas. But officials insist the information the government had was too general to issue an alert to the public. ... One question stalked officials here today. Why did it take so long for all this information to come out? The answer, is that officials say it is only now as Congress ramps up its investigation into the events leading up to September llth that officials here are building their record of what the President knew and when he knew it." NBC (5/16, lead story, Brown) reports, "The atmosphere here today, one of damage control, with White House officials insisting they did everything they could, given the nature of the

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Copyright 2002 The Washington Post

washingtonpost.com The Washington Post May 19, 2002 Sunday Final Edition SECTION: A SECTION; Pg. A09 LENGTH: 1560 words HEADLINE: Clues Pointed to Changing Terrorist Tactics; Foiled Plots, FBI Data Showed Al Qaeda Groups Might Use Airplanes as Missiles BYLINE: Steve Fainaru, Washington Post Staff Writer DATELINE: NEW YORK BODY: A broad array of signals — from foiled plots to FBI field interviews — suggested for years that al Qaeda-affiliated terrorist groups had considered employing airplanes as missiles and U.S. flight schools as pilot training grounds. The clues included a 1995 plot to blow up 11 American jetliners over the Pacific Ocean, then crash a light plane into CIA headquarters — a suicide mission to have been carried out by a Pakistani pilot who had trained at flight schools in North Carolina, Texas and New York. FBI investigators visited two of the flight schools in 1996 after the plot was uncovered in the Philippines, school operators said. In 1998 and 1999, analysts warned federal officials that terrorists might crash hijacked aircraft into landmarks such as the Pentagon and the World Trade Center. Then, last July, the Italian government closed airspace over Genoa and mounted antiaircraft batteries based on information that Islamic extremists were planning to use an airplane to kill President Bush. "There's a lot of stuff that was out there," said Stephen Gale, a terrorism specialist at the University of Pennsylvania who presented an analysis warning of airborne attacks to Federal Aviation Administration security officials in 1998. "The question is in what form it was out there, who was presenting and collating the information and what was the context in which the information was presented to the president." The Bush administration, fending off questions about how it acted on intelligence about terrorism before the Sept. 11 attacks, has asserted that although officials received generalized warnings about hijackings, there was no information indicating terrorists affiliated with Osama bin Laden might use hijacked airplanes as manually guided weapons. National security adviser Condoleezza Rice said Thursday that an intelligence briefing given to Bush on Aug. 6 mentioned hijacking only "in the traditional sense."

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Copyright 2002 American Broadcasting Companies, Inc. ABC News SHOW: This Week (10:30 AM ET) - ABC May 19, 2002 Sunday TYPE: Profile LENGTH: 8638 words HEADLINE: Condoleezza Rice comments on warnings of terrorist attacks prior to September llth; Senator Joseph Lieberman discusses forming an independent committee to investigate intelligence lapses; Correspondents discuss warnings prior to September llth; Representative Joseph Lieberman & Jorge Mas Santos of the Cuban American Foundation discuss Cuba and Bush's new Cuban policy; Commentary on the 1950s and death of Professor and author David Riesman ANCHORS: SAM DONALDSON; COKIE ROBERTS REPORTERS: BRIAN ROSS; PIERRE THOMAS; TERRY MORAN; GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS; GEORGE WILL BODY: Announcer: From ABC News in Washington, THIS WEEK with Sam Donaldson and Cokie Roberts. SAM DONALDSON, co-host: This morning, troubling messages hinting at a new attack by al-Qaeda. This, as questions erupt over intelligence warnings in the months before September llth. Unidentified Reporter: Why didn't he level with the American people about what he knew? DONALDSON: Are they legitimate? Ms. HILLARY CLINTON: The president knew what? My constituents would like to know the answer to that and many other questions. DONALDSON: The White House says it's politics Washington style. President GEORGE W. BUSH: It's the kind of place where second-guessing has become second nature. COKIE ROBERTS, co-host: For answers we'll speak with the woman in charge of national security, Condoleezza Rica and Senate Democrat Joseph Lieberman who's calling for a full review of the terrorist attacks conducted by a blue ribbon panel. DONALDSON: Also THIS WEEK, at issue: change in Cuba. As former President Carter returns from his historic trip and President Bush prepares a new policy. Is it time to lift the 43-yearold trade embargo?

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