Most of us were (are) September 11th people. We wanted to get Osama Bin Laden at all costs...wanted to destroy the Taliban, which had given him aid and comfort, wanted to pursue him to the ends of the earth. We wanted to get former Soviet nuclear material off the market. We wanted to strengthen our ports and our nuclear, chemical and other plants. We wanted the best intelligence possible, damn the cost.
Somewhere around September 14 (according to Richard Clarke..who should know) George Bush stopped becoming a September 11th person and started focusing on Iraq.....which had, according to the recent Senate report, no working relationship with Al Quieda or its representatives. Rather, Saddam ran a sectarian block against Iran and might be said to have served as a plug against some of the worst players int he region. Yeah, he was a bad guy...but so were lots of Middle East despots, and so was the leadership of North Korea. For reasons still not clear to a lot of people George Bush took his eye of Bin Laden and focused on Iraq.
While we had the entire blessing of the civilized world and could have chased Osama Bin Laden to hell and back with all the force necessary, we stopped worrying about him. George Bush even said he didn't think much about him anymore. Hard to believe that if he was really a September 11th guy!!
No, he was by late 2001 am emerging Iraq guy.....and there is a difference between being a September 11th war on terror guy and a September 14th Iraq guy. A ton on difference. And that is what the mid-term elections will show. A lot of September 11 people think Mr. Bush and his team have been so incompetent in their decision-making and execution that some kind of message has to be sent to them. Despite their efforts to claim Iraq is a major part of the war on terror...even Congress is having a hard time getting its arms around that mistake..meanwhile Bin Laden sends videotapes out of the hills and our "partner" Pakistan, grants him amnesty. |
