All opinions posted. None too pathetic or contrived. Everyone gets their say.

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

Tuesday, March 23, 2004

A Blame Game With Little Offense

Washington Post
...the players did not clash. Despite some sniping and testiness, the surprising theme was unity.

Democrats and Republicans alike -- past and present secretaries and deputy secretaries of state and defense -- spoke little of Clinton vs. Bush and lots about Before vs. After...

...former secretary of state Madeleine K. Albright, insisted that before the "megashock" of 9/11, stronger action against al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden was nearly impossible. "Diplomatic backing would have been virtually nonexistent" for a manned military strike at bin Laden's sanctuaries in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan...

...the first witness, former secretary of state Madeleine K. Albright, insisted that before the "megashock" of 9/11, stronger action against al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden was nearly impossible. "Diplomatic backing would have been virtually nonexistent" for a manned military strike at bin Laden's sanctuaries in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, she said.

Her successor, Colin L. Powell, emphatically agreed. The region in which bin Laden was operating was a powder keg of feuding, struggling and extremist states that might have blown up had the United States acted more forcefully before the terrible provocation of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon...

...When commission member and former senator Bob Kerrey (D-Neb.) argued that the U.S. military should have put commandos into Afghanistan to wipe out bin Laden's bases before 9/11, Cohen argued heatedly that America's allies, Congress and public would never have gone for it.

Later, Kerrey warned Cohen's successor, Donald H. Rumsfeld, that he was about to pose the same question. Rumsfeld smiled his tight little smile and parried: "I'm going to give you the same answer, because I thought he did a good job."...

...There was "a daily coordination phone call meeting" of senior officials, Powell continued, and "we formalized regular luncheons." Ultimately this resulted, a week before the attacks, in "NSPD-9," the new U.S. plan for dealing with terrorism...

...Powell bristled when a commission Democrat, former representative Timothy J. Roemer (Ind.), brandished Clarke's book and read a passage in which the author described a briefing at which he warned Powell of al Qaeda's reach. It was Dec. 20, 2000, and one of the PowerPoint slides prepared by Clarke reportedly said of the terrorists, "They're here" in the United States.

"At the time that he gave me the briefing, I was not the secretary of state, this administration was not in office," Powell answered. "If they were aware that al Qaeda representatives were already in the country running around . . . why hadn't they done something while they were preparing the PowerPoint presentation?"...
This was the most interesting hearing I have seen since the Thomas nomination hearings. It was pretty riveting stuff. The hearing tomorrow is likely to be even better.

What was most surprising to me was that both Clinton and Bush officials essentially agreed on the policy choices that the other made. Rumsfeld and Cohen could have given each others speeches and it would have been hard to notice any discrepancy. In fact the witnesses often referred to each other’s answers as being correct.

Bob Kerry was quite emphatic about his argument that something could have been tried to take out Bin Laden. Compared to the seriousness of the witnesses, it mostly made Sen. Kerry sound like an infant having a temper tantrum.

Clearly, the random acts of violence that Kerry was proposing would have likely been both ineffective and crippling to the US political position.

It is ridiculous to argue, as Bob Kerry did today, that Clinton could have ordered a military operation on the ground in Afghanistan in 1998 or 2000. The states in the region wouldn’t have stood for it, our allies would have denounced us, our enemies would have been ecstatic for an opportunity to criticize us, the Congress would have demanded a new impeachment hearing for Clinton, leftist activists would have been marching and rioting in the streets of the US and Europe, and the general public would not have supported President Clinton.

Theoretically, I suppose that something could have been done. But the reality was that doing something similar to Kerry’s suggestion would have been worse than useless -- it would have set back the fight against terrorism for years, and unnecessarily cost hundreds if not thousands of lives.

Posted by: Zayphar / 3/23/2004 09:25:00 PM


<< Home