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"...even the wicked get worse than they deserve." - Willa Cather, One of Ours

Monday, March 22, 2004

9/11: For The Record By Condoleezza Rice

Washington Post



"Frankly, I find it outrageous that the president is running for re-election on the grounds that he's done such great things about terrorism. He ignored it. He ignored terrorism for months, when maybe we could have done something to stop 9/11. Maybe. We'll never know." - former White House counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke
The al Qaeda terrorist network posed a threat to the United States for almost a decade before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Throughout that period -- during the eight years of the Clinton administration and the first eight months of the Bush administration prior to Sept. 11 -- the U.S. government worked hard to counter the al Qaeda threat...

...Through the spring and summer of 2001, the national security team developed a strategy to eliminate al Qaeda -- which was expected to take years. Our strategy marshaled all elements of national power to take down the network, not just respond to individual attacks with law enforcement measures...This became the first major foreign-policy strategy document of the Bush administration -- not Iraq, not the ABM Treaty, but eliminating al Qaeda...

...Despite what some have suggested, we received no intelligence that terrorists were preparing to attack the homeland using airplanes as missiles, though some analysts speculated that terrorists might hijack airplanes to try to free U.S.-held terrorists...

...Once advised that there was no evidence that Iraq was responsible for Sept. 11, the president told his National Security Council on Sept. 17 that Iraq was not on the agenda and that the initial U.S. response to Sept. 11 would be to target al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan...
Clarke has basically made two arguments: 1) that Bush has been ineffective in fighting terrorism, and 2) that the war in Iraq has hurt our efforts on the war on terrorism.

I think that his first argument is nonsense on its face. Even though I think Bush is a moron, he did an outstanding job on the terrorism front (i.e. Afghanistan) and I am satisfied with the performance of his national security team in this area. It is possible to make an argument that since the end of the Afghan campaign, Bush has failed to optimize his execution of his anti-terrorism policy. But to argue that “He ignored it. He ignored terrorism for months, when maybe we could have done something to stop 9/11." is objectively untrue.

On the other hand, Clarke's criticisms on the Iraq war are correct. It has diverted military, intelligence and political resources that could have been more effectively used directly against the terrorists. The argument that Iraq was a part of the war on terrorism is clearly facetious.

As to the wretched performance of the Bush administration's "Department of Homeland Security", don't get me started. In case you have missed my previous posts on this topic, I don't think DHS has anything to do with fighting terrorism. Its just another wasteful diversion of resources that could have been better used in improving our intelligence networks.

I think that none of you will be surprised to hear that I am not going to vote for President Bush this November. But to make the argument to the public that Bush is weak on terrorism will only discredit the accuser. For example, when Dean made a similar charge recently, Kerry made the correct political move by denouncing that statement and distancing himself from Dean. He had to. Nobody who hasn’t already decided to vote against Bush will believe that he is weak on terrorism. It just isn’t credible on its face.
Posted by: Zayphar / 3/22/2004 10:42:00 AM


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