. >> 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

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

eichenwald special edition conversations. three couldn't take three years for charges. arrangement three. three stooges free. download free brought us closer video for your media project a free media done to our teeth dot com. more news today violence is once again flared up. and these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. trying to corporations rule today .

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

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 morning that it wasn't simply the bush administration's fault but numerous agencies fault is t

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 saddam hussein whom the neoconservatives saw as a greater threat that prompted th

eichenwald talked about the numerous warnings the bush administration had received that pointed to a possible terrorist attack and not just talk they didn't only talk about the one on our august the sixth of that year but 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 just declassified records and come to the inescapable conclusion the administration's reaction to what mr bush was told in the weeks before that infamous briefing reflected significantly more negligence that has been disclosed in other. the words the office six document for all the controversy of controversy it provoked is not nearly as shocking as the briefs that came before it so honest i.c.i. his article he cited several examples of blatant oversight many came down very hard on george bush for ignoring these signs but it can be argued as it was in my newsroom this morning that it wasn't simply the bush administration's fault but numerous agencies fault is the bush adm

eichenwald uncovered in that new york times op ed as early as may have two thousand and one. the cia was warning bush of a coming 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 were 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 saddam hussein whom the neoconservatives saw as a greater threat that prompted

according to an article by kurt eichenwald, the white house, quote, failed to take significant action on multiple warnings by the intelligence community. on may 1st of 2001, the cia warned that a group presently in the united states was planning a terrorist operation. the warnings continued throughout the summer of 2001 with increasing urgency leading up to a now infamous august 6th briefing entitled "bin laden determined to strike in the u.s." eichenwald writes that officials at the counterterrorism center of the cia were so frustrated and so convinced an attack was coming, they suggested transferring so as not to be blamed when the attack took place. all told, it's a devastating portrait. roger cressey is an nbc news terrorism analyst and was deputy for counterterrorism at the national security council on september 11, shgs , 2001. michael tomasky is special correspondent for "newsweek" and the daily beast. let me start with roger. let at the start with roger. you have been on this show so often about this question, about what we knew, what we could have known. where do you think yo

joining us for the interview is kurt eichenwald. he's the author of "500 days." it's about the decisions 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

according to an article by kurt eichenwald, the white house, quote, failed to take significant action on multiple warnings by the intelligence community. on may 1st of 2001, the cia warned that a group presently in the united states was planning a terrorist operation. the warnings continued throughout the summer of 2001 with increasing urgency leading up to a now infamous august 6th briefing entitled bin laden determined to strike in the u.s. eichenwald writes that officials at the counterterrorism center of the cia were so frustrated and so convinced an attack was coming they suggested transferring so as not to be blamed when the attack took place. all told, it's a devastating portrait. roger cressey is an nbc news terrorism analyst and was deputy for counterterrorism at the national security council on september 11th, 2001. michael tomaski is special correspondent for "newsweek" and the daily beast. let at the start with roger. you have been on this show so often about this question, about what we knew, what we could have known. where do you think you are right now after reading thi

according to an article by kurt eichenwald, the white house, quote, failed to take significant action on multiple warnings by the intelligence community. on may 1st of 2001, the cia warned that a group presently in the united states was planning a terrorist operation. the warnings continued throughout the summer of 2001 with increasing urgency leading up to a now infamous august 6th briefing entitled "bin laden determined to strike in the u.s." eichenwald writes that officials at the counterterrorism center of the cia were so frustrated and so convinced an attack was coming, they suggested transferring so as not to be blamed when the attack took place. all told, it's a devastating portrait. roger cressey is an nbc news terrorism analyst and was deputy for counterterrorism at the national security council on september 11 shg, 2001. michael tomasky is special correspondent for "newsweek" and the daily beast. let me start with roger. let at the start with roger. you have been on this show so often about this question, about what we knew, what we could have known. where do you think you a

kurt eichenwald is joining us in "the situation room." his book is entitled "500 days: secrets and 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 -

kurt eichenwald is joining us in "the situation room." his book is entitled "500 days: secrets and 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 raised alarm bells, directly by the president? >> the may 1st, 2001, briefing where it specifically states there is -- there are a group of people in the united states, al qaeda terrorists, who are preparing to strike. and you had -- you know, when you take the compilation of everything that was there, you had briefings that said this is going to be mass casualties. you had briefings that said, you know, this is on track. it's going to happen. you know, they have a flexible time frame. and there was an enormous amount of detail that was going on. so, you know, a

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