Who could have known?
It's been a hellacious week so I haven't posted in a little bit. Sorry!

Condi Rice's claim that no one ever could have predicted terrorists would use planes as weapons seems to be crumbling by the minute. The latest is an article from the English paper The Independent. Here's an excerpt:

"A former translator for the FBI with top-secret security clearance says she has provided information to the panel investigating the 11 September attacks which proves senior officials knew of al-Qa'ida's plans to attack the US with aircraft months before the strikes happened.

She said the claim by the National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, that there was no such information was "an outrageous lie".

Sibel Edmonds said she spent more than three hours in a closed session with the commission's investigators providing information that was circulating within the FBI in the spring and summer of 2001 suggesting that an attack using aircraft was just months away and the terrorists were in place. The Bush administration, meanwhile, has sought to silence her and has obtained a gagging order from a court by citing the rarely used "state secrets privilege".

State secrets privilege? What the hell is that? Next up is double secret bingo privilege.

Why is there this level of debate over the issue? It's apparent that the Administration didn't take the threat of terrrorism as seriously as they did an attack with ballistic missiles from a rogue state. The latest revelations that Rice was going to deliver a speech on September 11, 2001 about such a danger shows where the Administration was focused.

They wanted the Star Wars missile defense system, a Reagan-era favorite, as the front line of US defense. These people are living in the 80's. They need to be shown the door.