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Politics : GOPwinger Lies/Distortions/Omissions/Perversions of Truth
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To: PartyTime who started this subject4/9/2004 1:26:56 AM
From: Karen Lawrence   of 173976
 
NYTimes Editorial: Ms. Rice was utterly unconvincing when she tried to portray Al Qaeda as anything approaching a top concern for the White House.
In her long-awaited public testimony yesterday, Condoleezza Rice, the most diligent of public servants, made it clear that under her direction the Bush administration touched all the proper bases in planning an antiterror program. The State Department was told to "work with" other countries. F.B.I. field offices were "tasked" to increase surveillance on known terrorists. Warnings were issued, meetings were held. But Ms. Rice was utterly unconvincing when she tried to portray Al Qaeda as anything approaching a top concern for the White House.

The question of most concern to the public, and particularly the tortured families of the 9/11 victims, was whether the attack could have been averted if Al Qaeda had been something more than one policy concern among many for the administration. Certainly, if the president had reacted quickly and aggressively to the C.I.A.'s August briefing, he might have convened a cabinet meeting and directed every official to come up with immediate antiterrorism plans — including the totally out-of-the-loop transportation secretary, Norman Mineta. But even if Mr. Bush had attempted to move the federal bureaucracy with optimum energy, it's likely the short-term outcome would have been more warnings issued and more studies planned.

The central role of the F.B.I. in failing to predict the attacks is one of the many things on which Ms. Rice seems to basically agree with Richard Clarke, the administration's former counterterrorism coordinator turned chief critic. Both officials drew pictures of an agency that dragged its feet and failed to report information from field agents that would have pointed to a possible terrorist attack from the sky. The Bush administration, after some early resistance, has tried since 9/11 to get the F.B.I. and C.I.A. to share information with each other and the rest of the administration. It will be important to hear the investigating committee's thoughts on what further action is needed to retool the F.B.I. for the modern world.
www.nytimes.com/2004/04/09/opinion/09FRI1.html?hp
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