THE ECONOMIST: OFFICIAL LIES AND COVER-UPS
Michael,
This was written before the Rowley memo was released, but it is quite damning of the Administration's poor way of handling the safety of the nation last summer:
economist.com
".....Where the administration plainly deserves censure is for some of the official comments it has made. Last week, for instance, Ms Rice claimed that “I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would...use an airplane as a missile.” America's spies surely could have done so, given that at least two terrorist plots to do exactly that had been foiled before (these had planned to crash aircraft into the Eiffel Tower and the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency).
Ms Rice also said that “the overwhelming bulk of the evidence was that this was an attack that was likely to take place overseas.” Maybe. But, according to the Washington Post, the August 6th briefing was called “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US.” It was mainly about the threat of domestic attack. Indeed, it had been commissioned by Mr Bush because so much intelligence had been focused—wrongly—on al-Qaeda's operations abroad.
Even more questionable statements were made after September 11th. On September 17th, Mr Mueller said that “there were no warning signs that I'm aware of that would indicate this type of operation in the country.” Now his officials say that both he and perhaps the attorney-general were told soon after the attacks about a report written in July from the FBI office in Phoenix. This report, based on over a year's research, argued that Mr bin Laden might be sending followers to train at flight schools in America. It is not clear when the two high-ups read the report, and they have only recently told Mr Bush about it.
More generally, the Bush administration seems culpable of a broad libel against Bill Clinton. Ever since September 11th, Republicans have repeatedly claimed that the former administration was less diligent in guarding America against such attacks than Mr Bush. Spies who reported to both White Houses say privately that this is rubbish (at least until September 11th). People like Ms Rice were much more concerned about missile treaties than obscure Afghans. The new revelations add to that picture. Unsurprisingly, one of the first Democrats to demand a full inquiry was Hillary Clinton.
This does not reflect particularly well on the administration. (It also adds to the suspicion that one reason why Mr Bush kept George Tenet, the CIA's director, in his job after the worst intelligence failure since Pearl Harbour was because Mr Tenet could have pointed out that Mr Bush was no better than Mr Clinton). But this has more to do with public relations than with what really went wrong."
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I'll post the followup when it comes out in a few days. The Rowley revelations make the Administration look even more deceitful and hellbent on a "coverup and distract" routine.
Got milk? Had your terror threat today? |
