Bush was too busy focusing on Iraq: Given Warnings, Bush Administration Neglected Terrorist Threat
Clinton Administration officials warned the Bush Administration about terrorist threat. Reporting for the Washington Post, Barton Gellman has written that "beginning on August 7, 1998, the day that al Qaeda destroyed the U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, Clinton directed a campaign of increasing scope and lethality against bin Laden's network that carried through his final days in office." (12/19/01) When President Bush took office in January 2001, Clinton Administration officials briefed the incoming Bush Administration on its efforts to eliminate al Qaeda. The 9-11 Commission's March 24, 2004 Staff Report notes that, on January 26, 2001, Richard Clarke provided the National Security Council leadership with two plans for increasing counterterrorism efforts, a 1998 comprehensive plan and a 2000 strategy paper. Neither of these plans were adopted, and the Bush Administration did not develop its own counterterrorism strategy before the attacks of September 11.
The Bush Administration neglected warnings by outgoing Clinton staff during its transition into office. In his testimony before the independent commission investigating the September 11 terrorist attacks, Secretary of State Colin Powell admitted that the Bush Administration had been briefed by outgoing Clinton Administration officials: "the outgoing Administration provided me and others in the incoming Administration with transition papers as well as briefings that reinforced our awareness of the worldwide threat from terrorism." (3/23/04). Daniel Benjamin, author of The Age of Sacred Terror, reported that Brian Sheridan, an assistant secretary of Defense under President Clinton, stated "I offered to brief anyone, any time on any topic [related to terrorism]. Never took it up." (Los Angeles Times, 3/30/04) Mr. Benjamin also noted that Don Kerrick, a three-star general who served as President Clinton's deputy National Security Advisor and continued through the first four months of the Bush Administration, issued a memo to the new National Security Council leadership about al Qaeda, saying, "We are going to be struck again." He never heard back: "I don't think it was above the waterline. They were gambling nothing would happen."
Warnings about al Qaeda began to pour in. The Bush Administration was repeatedly warned by both the U.S. and foreign intelligence agencies that al Qaeda was planning an attack. In his testimony before the independent 9-11 commission, Richard Clarke asserted that both he and Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) George Tenet "tried very hard to create a sense of urgency by seeing to it that intelligence reports on the Al Qaida threat were frequently given to the president and other high-level officials." Clarke further stated that "President Bush was regularly told by the director of Central Intelligence that there was an urgent threat...He was told this dozens of times in the morning briefings that George Tenet gave him." The White House has confirmed that, on August 6, 2001, President Bush's Presidential Daily Briefing (PDB) specifically focused on al Qaeda's intent to attack the United States, and specifically warned that airplane hijackings could be involved. According to press reports, the PDB included a fresh report from British intelligence warning that al Qaeda was planning multiple hijackings.
The National Security Council focused on Iraq, not terrorism. The Associated Press reported that "President Bush's national security leadership met formally nearly 100 times in the months prior to the Sept. 11 attacks yet terrorism was the topic during only two of those sessions, officials say...Bush's principals committee was focused on missile defense, Iraq, China, international economic policy, global warming and the U.S. stance toward Russia, a subject of particular interest to National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, a Russian expert who has now worked for both Bush presidents." (6/29/02) One of the two meetings occurred just a week before the attacks. |
