<<< One of the bizarre things about changing presidential administrations is that the new administration comes in cold, there are empty chairs and empty desks in all the offices of political appointees, not even a Rolodex, and they start from scratch. (The support staff doesn't change, of course.)>>>
That was what led to 911. The Clinton administration knew and understood the AQ threat, but Clinton was too distracted with the Monica debacle to do anything about it. If he had done anything, I would have been one of the first to accuse him of trying to divert attention from the Monica situation. I would not have understood, but I would have been livid.
In a way people like me would have to take the blame.
The new administration (Bush) was too arrogant (maybe that is not the best choice of a word) and didn't want anything to do with the previous administration. They were going to throw everything out.
I don't think Bush had the personality type to go into office and find out exactly what whas left to them - what was good and what was bad.In some situations that would have worked out, but not in this situation.
In hindsight it is clear there was plenty of justified blame to go around.
This administration, I think compounded the issue by delaying the 911 commission and or not creating a 911 type commission of their own.
If they did, we would have found out that we did not have to go to war in Iraq - thus saving several hundred billion dollars, 900 plus lives, and thousands of our own injured - besides all the ill will that the war in Iraq has caused.
Just think what we could have done with the hundreds of billions of dollar spent on the war, if we had spentit own homeland security.
It's a good thing thing we have term limits and we have elections whereby we change things without letting things get really bad. |
