Gary Hart says he too warned Rice about an imminent terror attack on two occasions before 9/11.
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By David Talbot
April 2, 2004 | Richard Clarke was not the only national security expert who warned National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and other Bush administration officials about terrorist threats before 9/11. Former Democratic Sen. Gary Hart of Colorado also directly told senior Bush officials loudly and clearly that, in his words, "The terrorists are coming, the terrorists are coming."
Hart was co-chair (with former Sen. Warren Rudman, R-N.H.) of the U.S. Commission on National Security, a bipartisan panel that conducted the most thorough investigation of U.S. security challenges since World War II. After completing the report, which warned that a devastating terrorist attack on America was imminent and called for the immediate creation of a Cabinet-level national security agency, and delivering it to President Bush on January 31, 2001, Hart and Rudman personally briefed Rice, Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell. But, according to Hart, the Bush administration never followed up on the commission's urgent recommendations, even after he repeated them in a private White House meeting with Rice just days before 9/11.
Hart, who is now advising the Kerry campaign on national security issues, spoke with Salon this week about the Bush administration's failures to heed his warnings and why he feels the country is still at grave risk. Even at this late date, says Hart, Bush has failed to sufficiently coordinate federal, state, local and private-sector security efforts, leaving open American ports as possible entry points for weapons of mass destruction and exposing such prime targets as petrochemical facilities located near major urban areas. And two and a half years after 9/11, Hart observes, no government official has been held responsible for the disastrous security failures of that day. The Bush White House, he charges, is locked in a strange and delicate dance with intelligence officials, maneuvering to place blame on the CIA but fearing if it does so too blatantly, the Bush team's own failings will be exposed.
What was the reaction from Bush officials to your warnings about terrorism when you delivered your final report to the president in late January 2001?
We didn't meet with President Bush. But we briefed at length Don Rumsfeld, Colin Powell and Condi Rice. And all of them at that time treated it seriously. I conducted the briefing, along with my co-chairman Warren Rudman, and Gen. Charles Boyd, who was our commission's executive director, and maybe one or two other commissioners. I would say the response was respectful, professional, serious. And Rumsfeld, as I recall, made pages of notes on a yellow pad.
After your briefings, do you think the administration responded adequately to your warnings?
Well, let me just go through the history of things. Because we also sent copies of the report to every member of Congress. And we lobbied specific members of Congress, including Joe Lieberman, who took it very seriously. And in the spring of 2001, some members of Congress introduced legislation to create a homeland security agency. Hearings were scheduled. And our commission, which was scheduled to go out of operation on Feb. 15, 2001, was given a six-month extension so we could testify with some authority. Which we did in March and April.
And then as Congress started to move on this, and the heat was turned up, George Bush -- and this is often overlooked -- held a press conference or made a public statement on May 5, 2001, calling on Congress not to act and saying he was turning over the whole matter to Dick Cheney.
So this wasn't just neglect, it was an active position by the administration. He said, "I don't want Congress to do anything until the vice president advises me." We now know from Dick Clarke that Cheney never held a meeting on terrorism, there was never any kind of discussion on the department of homeland security that we had proposed. There was no vice presidential action on this matter.
In other words, a bipartisan commission of seven Democrats and seven Republicans who had spent two and a half years studying the problem, a group of Americans with a cumulative 300 years in national security affairs, recommended to the president of the United States on a reasonably urgent basis the creation of a Cabinet-level agency to protect our country -- and the president did nothing!
By the way, when our final report came out in 2001, it did not receive word one in the New York Times. Zero. The Washington Post put it on Page 3 or 4, below the fold.
So there was absolutely no follow-up on your commission's recommendations once Bush referred the matter to Cheney?
Right.
And were you ever consulted again by the administration?
No. But as one of those fearing a near-term attack, I went out on my own throughout the spring and summer of 2001 saying, "The terrorists are coming, the terrorists are coming." One of the speeches I gave was, ironically enough, to the International Air Transportation Association in Montreal. And the Montreal newspapers headlined the story, "Hart predicts terrorist attacks on America."
By pre-arrangement I had gotten an appointment with Condi Rice the following day and had gone straight from Montreal to Washington to meet with her. And my brief message to her was, "Get going on homeland security, you don't have all the time in the world." This was on Sept. 6, 2001.
What was her response?
Her response was "I'll talk to the vice president about it." And this tracks with Clarke's testimony and writing that even at this late date, nothing was being done inside the White House.
And your sense from talking with Rice that day was ...
She didn't seem to feel a terrible sense of urgency. Her response was simply "I'll talk to the vice president about it."
Did you get a sense that the administration had made any progress on security since you first briefed her, Rumsfeld and Powell in January?
No. I think she made some kind of gratuitous statements like, "We've taken your report very seriously, we're looking at it, we're thinking about it, we've asked people to give comments on it."
But you felt that was more or less a pro forma response?
I thought so. Now the backdrop here is that I'd known Condi Rice for about 20 years. She supported me in my presidential effort in 1984. She later said she changed parties in the early '80s, but I know she was a supporter of mine in '84. She was completing her Ph.D. at the University of Denver at the time. She helped me with foreign policy in my '84 campaign. I think that's the only reason I got in to the White House to see her.
One more thing: I met with Rice not long after the president was in Crawford and being briefed by CIA officials on the possible use of aircraft against American targets. This was all happening in the weeks before 9/11.
So I think it's terribly disingenuous for the president of the United States to say, "If somebody had told us they were going to use aircraft against the World Trade Center, we would of course have taken action." I think it's just ridiculous to say, "We're not going to do anything until someone tells us where, when and how." |
