Goldman Sachs vice chairman international Robert Zoellick said the firm looked forward to calling on Mr Macfarlane's expertise throughout the Asia Pacific.Yeah, that's the same Robert "the Vulcan" Zoellick who resigned from Condi Rice's State Department in July, 2006 rather than answer questions about a pre-9/11 meeting he attended [sorry, that's wrong: see below], in which Rice was warned by Tenet about an Al Quaeda strike on the USA.
"We look forward to drawing on Ian's considerable expertise and experience, not only in Australia but throughout the Asia Pacific region," Mr Zoellick said.
During the summer of 2001, Rice met with CIA Director George Tenet on an almost daily basis to discuss the possibilities and prevention of terrorist attacks on American targets. Notably, on July 10, 2001, Rice met with Tenet in what he referred to as an "emergency meeting" held at the White House at Tenet's request to brief Rice and the NSC staff about the potential threat of an al Qaeda attack. Rice responded by asking Tenet to give a presentation on the matter to Secretary Rumsfeld and (now-former) Attorney General John Ashcroft.Now there's a story which has gone to ground!
When asked about the meeting in 2006, Rice asserted she did not recall the specific meeting, commenting that she had met repeatedly with Tenet that summer about terrorist threats. Moreover, she stated that it was "incomprehensible” to her that she ignored terrorist threats two months before the September 11 attacks.
UPDATE: Sorry, it seems Zoellick was not at that meeting. I was thinking of Philip Zelikow, the 9/11 panel's executive director and the principal author of its report, who later became Rice's top adviser. Zelikow was told of the meeting by Tenet but did not alert the 9/11 Commision.
