. >> kurt eichenwald on his boat "500 days." and a whistleblower once jailed after revealing how ubs had helped americans evade taxes. >> today is a great day for whistleblowers, a great day for all the honest americans out there who work their job, pay their taxes, and today is a great day for tax fairness. today is a terrible day for big- time tax cheats. >> all of that and more coming up. this is "democracy now!," democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. the u.s. ambassador to libya and three embassy staffers have been killed in an attack on the u.s. consulate in the libyan city of benghazi. christopher stevens and three aides died of smoke inhalation after an angry mob set fire to the building in protest of an amateur anti-muslim film produced in the united states. the film also sparked protests in egypt, where demonstrators scaled a wall of u.s. embassy in cairo and burnt the american flag. the film called "in a sense of muslims," was funded by private donors and made by director who's called islam a can

tonight a special edition of conversations of great minds i'm joined by kurt eichenwald kurt eichenwald is a contributing editor of vanity fair a new york times bestselling author of three books he previously worked for twenty years at times in england as an investigative reporter columnist and senior writer two time winner of the george polk award for excellence in journalism and a pulitzer prize finalist in two thousand and two thousand and two his second book the informant was called one of the best nonfiction books of the decade by the new york times book review and made into a major motion picture starring matt damon for its most recent book is the critically acclaimed five hundred days secrets and lies in the terror wars are joins me now in the studio so honored to have you with us thanks for having me thanks for joining us. first of five hundred a question so let's start with nine eleven it seems to have been a pivotal point in fact i want to get into some of the before but first of all the nine eleven commission i'm just curious your thoughts on what they did how well they did t

welcome back to a special edition of conversations with a great minds of kurt eichenwald i can always a contributing editor of vanity fair new york times best selling author of three books two time winner of the george polk award for excellence in journalism and a pulitzer prize finalist in two thousand and two thousand and two his most recent book is the critically acclaimed five hundred days secrets and lies in the terror wars let's get back to it you just before the break you mentioned that. even in the face of all this evidence in these repeated warnings that al qaeda and osama bin laden were up to something that something was coming the bush administration kept throwing this back into the frame of this is dissin from ation coming to us from saddam hussein he's really the bad guy we need to keep our eye on him and that there was no basis for that. does this tie back to one thousand nine hundred eighty eight i mean there were there were a number of members of the administration that signed that document they hauled on president clinton to invade iraq and take out saddam hussein. th

there is something missing in eichenwald's account.hat i think is particularly interesting. but otherwise a lot of what he said was part of the 9/11 commission narrative. there were opportunities, there certainly were clues, and the intelligence community was very active in talking about a potential threat. as we've talked about on multiple occasions, the actionable intelligence we dealt with that summer pointed to an attack overseas. what you saw in the pdboverseas. what you saw in the ped is analytical information. >>> president bush's counterterrorism chief blamed bush in the leadup to the attacks. he spoke in 2004 after leading the white house. here's richard clark. let's watch. >> frankly, i find it outrageous the president is running for re-election on the grounds he's done such great things about terrorism. he ignored it. he ignored terrorism for months when maybe we could have done something to stop 9/11. maybe. we'll never know. >> michael, i have to admit, i have an attitude about this so i'd hold it back a bit but it deals w

for more on his remarkable reporting, i'm joined by kurt eichenwald contributing editor to "vanity fair" and author of "500 days, secrets and lies in the terror wars." kurt, thank you for this remarkable piece of journalism and your op-ed that has struck a nerve and reopened many questions. tough questions. i guess having looked at the op-ed, what is the single most important secret that is no longer secret and the most important lie that has been debunked? >> well, there are so many unfortunately. one of the -- i think one of the most important lies or important secrets, something that happened post-9-11 was this effort to essentially blame the c.i.a. blame the counter terrorists center. that is at the epicenter of all of the intelligence agencies' efforts against al-qaeda and the rest. and say well, they didn't give us enough information. they could have done this. they could have done that. these people have suffered in silence for 11 years because they had to. and the truth of the matter is they fed so much information to the white house, they were there day in and day out saying th

there is something missing in eichenwald's account.ee that pbd declassified, chris, because that's the one piece in his article that i think is particularly interesting. but otherwise a lot of what he said was part of the 9/11 commission narrative. there were opportunities, there certainly were clues, and the intelligence community was very active in talking about a potential threat. as we've talked about on multiple occasions, the actionable intelligence we dealt with that summer pointed to an attack overseas. what you saw in the pdb was overseas. what you saw was analytic conclusions, all of which we knew but didn't have specific information that focused on a potential attack inside the states at that time. >> well, president bush's counterrism chief blamed bush for ignoring the threat from al qaeda in the leadup to the attacks. he spoke out in 2004 after leaving the white house. here's richard clark. >> frankly, i find it outrageous that the president is running for reelection on the grounds that he's done such great things about te

president jacques chirac to go to war with iraq as just one of the many questions were posed to kurt eichenwald in a special edition of conversations with great minds. you need to know this remember this debate from one thousand nine hundred ninety two. you can move your factor south to better have dollar an hour for labor our young twenty five that's a son you've been in business for a long time you got to throw one full pay a dollar an hour for your labor. have no health care that's most expensive single element making a car have no environmental controls no pollution controls and no retirement. if you don't care about anything but make the money there will be a challenge sucking sound going south so that was ross perot warning the nation about nafta it was also the last time a third party candidate was given a voice during the presidential debates and frankly the nation should have listened to him he was right and the two major party candidates that year bill clinton george herbert walker bush were dead wrong about the devastation nafta would cause to american jobs and our manufacturing base

but this -- actually, this reporting by kurt eichenwald is great. people should check it out because it is shocking. it's still shocking after all these years to hear that there were advisers around the president at that time who disregarded the intelligence that was filtering up through the system and was so determined about -- to go after saddam hussein, pre-9/11, never mind post-9/11, that they were willing to disregard the intelligence. given where they ended up campaigning, you would think -- and given where we ended up with iraq, you would think they learned those lessons. but you heard mayor giuliani talking about iran above all, and mccain, they should know misdirected priorities is no way to balance out this country's security. >> we have to leave it there. thank you both for your time on this 9/11 day. certainly, we give our -- all of us together certainly give our prayers for the families of 9/11 and we're determined to make sure 9/11 doesn't happen again. coming up, mitt romney was supposed to be mr. economy. but the american people have

they published an op ed last night called the deafness before the storm and in it contributor kurt eichenwald talked about the numerous warning signs the bush administration had received that pointed to a possible terrorist attack and not just talk didn't only talk about the one on august the sixth of that year but many others and i want to read you part of the new york times article it said while those documents are still not public i have received excerpts from many of them along with the others recently deceased decline declassified records and come today in scaife inescapable conclusion the administration's reaction to what mr bush was told in the weeks before that infamous briefing reflected significantly more negligence than has been disclosed in. other words the office fix document for all the controversy of controversy it provoked is not nearly as shocking as the briefs that came before it so on a stuffy and his article he cited several examples of blatant oversight many came down very hard on george bush for ignoring the science but it can be argued as it was in my newsroom this morn

received in the months before like the august sixth memo all went largely ignored as journalist kurt eichenwald uncovered in that new york times op ed as early as may of two thousand and one. the cia was warning bush overcoming attack on may first the cia warn the white house there was a terrorist group presently in the united states on june twenty second bush was warned that al-qaeda attacks could be imminent but the white house did nothing why well as i can well points out it's because bush and his team of neocons in the white house were functionally delusional rather than taking the threat seriously they all argue that bin laden was just bluffing to distract america from the real threat saddam hussein as i can while writes and intelligent official and intelligence official and a member of the bush administration both told me in interviews that the neoconservative leaders who had recently assume power at the pentagon or warning the white house that the cia had been fooled according to this theory bin laden was merely pretending to be planning an attack that distracted ministration from some s

. >> this morning in the new york times, investigative reporter curt eichenwald said the write house refuse ominous warnings since may of 2001. >> i've seen the presidential daily briefs before august 6 of 2001 and they're horrific. there are reports attacks are coming, there are going to be mass casualties. >> now when we knew about the august 6 memo, it was bad enough. there was this passage: passage. tells of an unnamed c.i.a. briefer: >> so they send a guy this is not just hade, you send a guy down to the ranch you don't get it they're coming, an attack in the u.s. do you know what bush's response was? let me show it to you: >> now pause it and think about that for a second. now, if somebody gives you a daily briefing every day, do you say ok, you've covered your ass? no! if somebody has come down there and said they're coming, they're coming they're coming, you've got to do something and he goes ahh i'm on vacation. he was on vacation for a month doing nothing. he said ok, you covered your ass, go home now. it gets worse. >> he said i have read excerpts from many of them, referr

ek eichenwald has come to an inescapable conclusion that the administration's reactions to what mr. bush was told in the weeks before that infamous briefing reflected significantly more negligence than has been disclosed. his reports. we know that there were 40 other mentions of osama bin laden and al qaeda in presidential daily briefs prior to 9/11. but he does further than that and says direct warnings about al qaeda attacking the u.s. began in the spring of 2001. by may 1st, the cia total of a report "a group presently in the united states" was planning a terrorist operation. the june 22nd daily brief reported that al qaeda strikes could be "imminent." and this tracks with the recollection of former anti terrorism official richard clark who served in the clinton/bush administration and has written a sharply critical book. he told nbc news about a june 21st meeting he sat in on with cia director george tenet and condoleezza advisor's office and i've used the phrase to describe the warnings as "he has his hair on fire." he was about as excited as i've ever seen him. and he said som

joining us for the interview is kurt eichenwald. he's the author of "500 days."ecisions made by the white house in the first days in the 9/11 attacks. it's nice to see you. >> thanks for having me. >> in the course of your reporting, you gained access to some presidential daily briefings that are still classified. you described what's in some of them. what did you find in those briefs? >> what you had was a time after time after time of the bush administration being told in some far more level of specificity than we have heard before that something was coming. an attack was coming. you had a may 1st daily brief that went to the president saying, you know, there is a group in the united states that is planning an attack. you had a daily brief that said there are going to be mass casualty. there was a daily brief that said while it's been delayed, this attack is still coming. and you know, it points out a number of things. it points out the magnitude of the information that the bush administration was getting. but to a degree, it also goes to what you were saying a

kurt eichenwald is joining us in "the situation room."nd lies in the terror weres." kurt, thanks for coming in. you've come up with powerful, powerful stuff. let me read a couple of mines. "during the spring and summer of 2001, president bush had on several occasions asked his briefers whether any of the threats pointed to the united states." was there any specific threat to the united states that you came upon that should have immediately arm lls, rectly by the president? >> the may 1st, 2001, briefing where it specifically states there is -- there are a group people in thunited states,al edaterr, who are prarg to strike. and you had -- you know, whe you take the compilation of everything that was there, you had briefgs that said this is going to be mass casualties. h briefings that id, you know, this is on track. it's going to happen. you know, they h flexible time frame. and there was an enormousmount of detail that was going on. so, know, at the end, what yohave he,d i think the most importa - to me, one of the more important things i

. >>> earlier this morning, we heard from kirk eichenwald.ed him why he focused on that period after the attacks. >> you know, i started wanting to bring a historical book about the eight years of the bush administration and counterterrorism. and i found that there was so much in the first 500 days that was done and that we didn't know that when you say what didn't we know, pretty much the outline and the scope of many of the actions that were taken. >> what you do have is some of the stories having been like a fly on the wall. like when jack sherrock is talking to president bush. >> when bush was pushing him, the president of france, to join on with the coalition to go after iraq, he wasn't having a lot of success. he didn't believe the intelligence. he thought the intelligence was shoddy. so did putin and others. bush finally went to -- well, you and i share the same faith, and you're catholic, i'm a methodist, and this confrontation is willed by god. biblical prophesies are being fulfilled. he mentioned something very central to the book o

writing in "the new york times," journalist and author kurt eichenwald reports the bush administration dismissed a number of warnings of an al qaeda attack in u.s. beginning in the spring of 2001, instead focusing on saddam hussein. in one assessment, eichenwald writes -- some counterterrorism officials were so dismayed with the administration's response that they discussed seeking a transfer so that others would be blamed when the attack on the u.s. eventually took place. the suggestion was dismissed because there would not be enough time to train replacements. the u.s. military has disclosed a guantanamo prisoner died over the weekend in his cell. the victim's identity has not been released, but he is said to have taken part in a hunger strike in the prison earlier this year. he is believed to be the ninth foreign prisoner to die at guantanamo since the u.s. began jailing foreigners there in 2002. several prisoners have taken their own lives. the u.n.'s top human rights official has renewed pleas for both sides of the conflict in syria to stop what could amount to war crimes or crime