John,
are you joking? why are details always missing from your posts? where is the evidence of evidently and what did he do to make it number one?
Definitely, because you could only be joking with that breezy defense of the presently muddled, at best, Bush ME policy. I thought it was clever joking, that's all.
And because you have to be joking with that column from someone by the name of George Rummo. I hope you didn't mean to count that as evidence against Clinton; it's only evidence that we have yet another Clinton hater.
It's a pretty silly column. Another good joke.
But there is little doubt that, over the course of the Clinton administration, and particularly, in the last several years, they all became much more aware of the terrorist threat, specifically from bin Laden; and that much was done to deal with that (clearly and obviously not enough). Sandy Berger has written and talked about that; Clinton has talked about it; a lot of others as well. At the end of this post, I will, if it's still on the web, post Al Hunt's WSJ column from last Thursday in which he makes the points I brought to the table here. That the Clinton folk did more during there last few years in office than they've been given credit for; and that the Bush people fear a national commission because they worry it will uncover their lowered priority for terrorism during their first however many months in office.
As for blame on the terrorism game, I have no doubt there is more than enough to go around for everyone. The FBI screwed up badly and that could be traced back to the culture created and maintained by Hoover; the CIA did not do well; etc.; Reagan's CIA folk funded the wrong Afghan resistance groups (Kaplan argues this); etc.
I don't think this a profitable line of discussion, so I suggest we end it. It's only structure is to see who can blame the others political party/presidential occupant, with the most cutting columns. Fun; but hardly worthwhile.
Here's the Hunt column. I'm going to include the url but it takes a userid and password to get to it.
Why So Fearful
Of an Independent Inquiry?
online.wsj.com
The Democrats blew it last week trying to resurrect Howard Baker's old Watergate reprise on Sept. 11, "What did George Bush know and when did he know it?" More important is, what did the president not know and why not.
Only crazies believe that George W. Bush, or anyone else in power, had prior information about September's terrorism and didn't act on it. That's as loony as charges 60 years ago that FDR was complicit in Pearl Harbor.
Yet the administration's actions suggest a cover-up. Since the charges that the president knew something are baseless, what does the Bush/Cheney White House fear? Most likely a political embarrassment; any investigation would show that terrorism, before Sept. 11, was a low priority for the Bush administration and that the president seemed incurious about the issue.
One important question: With the CIA director and the national security counsel's top terrorism expert both in a state of high alarm last summer, was the president offered any other briefings on the terrorism threats after the short intelligence memo he was given at his Crawford ranch on Aug. 6 about a possible al Qaeda attack?
Ever since this memo was first revealed -- by CBS News eight months after the fact -- the White House has dissembled. The initial line was this was a warning against further attacks on American facilities overseas. White House press secretary Ari Fleischer told reporters the headline on the classified document was "Bin Laden determined to strike the United States." The Washington Post then revealed it actually said "strike in the U.S."
Republican operatives were ecstatic with Mr. Cheney's recent offensive, culminating with several weekend television interviews. Yet the vice president, who only days earlier seemed to equate Democratic dissent with disloyalty, was repeatedly misleading in his statements.
When asked why the president didn't pay more heed to the Aug. 6 briefing about bin Laden's plans, he insisted it was merely a "rehash," that "it didn't give us anything new or anything precise or specific." A few second later this benign memo suddenly became malignant when Mr. Cheney was asked why it was not turned over to Congress: It contains "the most sensitive sources and methods . . . it's the family jewels," he said.
In opposing a national commission to investigate why the country was ill-prepared for Sept. 11 -- as has been done in previous crises -- he invoked national security: "Most of what we need to talk about here should not be talked about in open hearings." The always well-briefed vice president surely knew that the McCain-Lieberman proposal for a commission explicitly states that any hearings could be closed to protect national security.
Asked about the pressure he brought earlier this year on Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle to shut down any full scale congressional inquiry he charged "Tom's wrong." Among other things, he said, he was trying to discourage any outside commission.
The facts are that earlier this year, the vice president not once but twice told Sen. Daschle that substantive hearings would disrupt American intelligence and demanded that the South Dakota Democrat "assure me you won't do anything." The debate was over a congressional inquiry.
But antiterrorism was not a priority for the Justice Department or for the Treasury, which sought to gut money-laundering regulations, or the national security team, which was more preoccupied with missile defense. It took several years and several incidents before the Clinton administration took terrorism seriously. The Bush administration reversed course.
There were more than a few warnings -- the terrorist captured during the millennium celebration who planned to blow up Los Angeles Airport; the Aug. 6 presidential daily briefing; the arrest of the al Qaeda terrorist, Zacarias Moussaoui, suspected of being the 20th hijacker, in mid-August; and the now famous directive sent by the Phoenix FBI agent, Kenneth Johnson, warning about terrorists using American flight schools. It was serious enough for Attorney General Ashcroft to start taking private jets last summer.
Any inquiry that pieces this together would be embarrassing. But the real purpose is the larger question of intelligence capabilities and coordination between agencies. Did the CIA do its job and, if so, why wasn't it heeded? How could the FBI bureaucracy perform so poorly that it never even passed on the Johnson memo?
Within a week and a half of Pearl Harbor President Roosevelt tapped an outside commission; later there were three more. A week after President Kennedy was assassinated, the Warren Commission was established.
Independent national commissions have been commonplace during other controversies and crises and the current congressional intelligence committees have seemed like the Keysone Kops in recent weeks. Instead, the Lieberman-McCain proposal for a bipartisan independent commission is essential for long-term public confidence. The recent revelations of governmental ineptitude surrounding the Sept. 11 tragedy won't be the last.
A national commission is supported not just by Democrats but by conservatives like the Weekly Standard magazine and thoughtful Republicans like Sen. Chuck Hagel. The chairman, who would be tapped by the president, would have to command bipartisan respect and possess a deep knowledge of national security and intelligence matters. Former senators Sam Nunn and Warren Rudman would qualify, as would former Defense Chief William Perry.
It could quell the political gamesmanship that threatens to dominate further discussion of Sept. 11. It may prove embarrassing to important federal agencies and to the Bush White House; it might be equally embarrassing to the Clinton White House and to Congress. It would displease Dick Cheney with his penchant for secretiveness and his arrogance about accountability. But it might give the American people the accounting they deserve for this tragedy. |
