in the government, I would have dealt with it."
The most damning moment of this surreal non-press conference. It was in the middle of a long response to a question from an L.A. Times reporter (I believe his name was Ed Chen). bush flat-out says that there was no threat that required anybody in his admin to do anything.
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QUESTION:
Mr. President, good evening. I'd like to ask you about the August 6th PDB. You've mentioned it at Fort Hood on Sunday. You pointed out that it did not warn of a hijacking of airplanes to crash into buildings, but that it warned of hijacking to obviously take hostages and to secure the release of extremists that are being held by the U.S.
Did that trigger some specific actions on your part in the administration, since it dealt with potentially hundreds of lives and a blackmail attempt on the United States government?
bush:
<snip>
The way my administration worked, Ed, was that I met with Tenet all the time. I obviously met with my principals a lot. We talked about threats that had emerged. We have a counterterrorism group meeting on a regular basis to analyze the threats that came in. Had there been a threat that required action by anybody in the government, I would have dealt with it.
<snip>
http://nytimes.com/2004/04/13/politics/13CND-BTEX.html?pagewanted=6