Cheney Was In Charge of Administration Anti-Terror/WMD Effort prior to 9/11, according to Rice Speech

The WaPost got ahold of the speech Condoleezza Rice was supposed to give on 9/11 2001, at Johns Hopkins, annunciating administration security policy. It was never given. The excerpted speech includes the text below, the last bit of which states that Dick Cheney headed the administration's pre-9/11 effort, between May 2001 and Sept 2001, against terrorism and WMD prior to 9/11.

What's interesting about this is -- I've never heard of it. If Cheney did head such an effort, where are his commission's meeting agendas, minutes, reports? What did Cheney learn about terrorism and WMD prior to 9/11? Did he talk to Clarke -- which seems like an obvious thing to do -- about terrorism and WMD between May and Sept 2001?

What's important about this speech is that it shows us what the administration would have claimed as their anti-terrorism efforts if they were not being called to account for their failure to foresee 9/11, or the war in Iraq. If Cheney was in charge of the anti-terror/WMD effort from May-Sept 2001, -- then the fact that this has never been mentioned by the administration before tells us that he didn't do anything, and they've been covering up this fact.

Rice's quote:

"And yes these new threats also require us to pay attention to other means of delivery besides missiles. We need to worry about the suitcase bomb, the car bomb and the vial of sarin released in the subway. That is why last year the federal government spent about $11 billion on counter-terrorism efforts, about twice as much as we did on missile defense. That is why we're working closely with friends, allies, and the broader international community on counterterrorism initiatives.


'And that is why in May the president appointed Vice President Cheney to oversee a coordinated national effort to better protect the U.S. homeland against a terror attack using WMD."