(CONTINUED) ANGLE: What was the problem? Why was it so difficult for the Clinton administration to make decisions on those issues? CLARKE: Because they were tough issues. You know, take, for example, aiding the Northern Alliance. Um, people in the Northern Alliance had a, sort of bad track record. There were questions about the government, there were questions about drug-running, there was questions about whether or not in fact they would use the additional aid to go after Al Qaeda or not. Uh, and how would you stage a major new push in Uzbekistan or somebody else or Pakistan to cooperate? One of the big problems was that Pakistan at the time was aiding the other side, was aiding the Taliban. And so, this would put, if we started aiding the Northern Alliance against the Taliban, this would have put us directly in opposition to the Pakistani government. These are not easy decisions. ANGLE: And none of that really changed until we were attacked and then it was ... CLARKE: No, that's not true. In the spring, the Bush administration changed â began to change Pakistani policy, um, by a dialogue that said we would be willing to lift sanctions. So we began to offer carrots, which made it possible for the Pakistanis, I think, to begin to realize that they could go down another path, which was to join us and to break away from the Taliban. So that's really how it started. QUESTION: Had the Clinton administration in any of its work on this issue, in any of the findings or anything else, prepared for a call for the use of ground forces, special operations forces in any way? What did the Bush administration do with that if they had? CLARKE: There was never a plan in the Clinton administration to use ground forces. The military was asked at a couple of points in the Clinton administration to think about it. Um, and they always came back and said it was not a good idea. There was never a plan to do that. (Break in briefing details as reporters and Clarke go back and forth on how to source quotes from this backgrounder.) ANGLE: So, just to finish up if we could then, so what you're saying is that there was no â one, there was no plan; two, there was no delay; and that actually the first changes since October of '98 were made in the spring months just after the administration came into office? CLARKE: You got it. That's right. QUESTION: It was not put into an action plan until September 4, signed off by the principals? CLARKE: That's right. QUESTION: I want to add though, that NSPD â the actual work on it began in early April. CLARKE: There was a lot of in the first three NSPDs that were being worked in parallel. ANGLE: Now the five-fold increase for the money in covert operations against Al Qaeda â did that actually go into effect when it was decided or was that a decision that happened in the next budget year or something? CLARKE: Well, it was gonna go into effect in October, which was the next budget year, so it was a month away. QUESTION: That actually got into the intelligence budget? CLARKE: Yes it did. QUESTION: Just to clarify, did that come up in April or later? CLARKE: No, it came up in April and it was approved in principle and then went through the summer. And you know, the other thing to bear in mind is the shift from the rollback strategy to the elimination strategy. When President Bush told us in March to stop swatting at flies and just solve this problem, then that was the strategic direction that changed the NSPD from one of rollback to one of elimination. QUESTION: Well can you clarify something? I've been told that he gave that direction at the end of May. Is that not correct? CLARKE: No, it was March. QUESTION: The elimination of Al Qaeda, get back to ground troops â now we haven't completely done that even with a substantial number of ground troops in Afghanistan. Was there, was the Bush administration contemplating without the provocation of September 11th moving troops into Afghanistan prior to that to go after Al Qaeda? CLARKE: I can not try to speculate on that point. I don't know what we would have done. QUESTION: In your judgment, is it possible to eliminate Al Qaeda without putting troops on the ground? CLARKE: Uh, yeah, I think it was. I think it was. If we'd had Pakistani, Uzbek and Northern Alliance assistance. --------------------------------------- So let me get this straight: For over two years, from October '98 - January 2001, the Clinton team basically sits on its ass in dealing with al-Qaeda, because, as Clarke says, they were "tough decisions" and would have required Pakistani, Usbek, and Northern Alliance assistance. Clarke even says al-Qaeda could have been defeated without putting US troops on the ground had there been such assistance. The Bush administration comes in, and after only a couple of months decides to address those "tough decisions" and make inroads with Pakistan, the Uzbeks, and the Northern Alliance. Shortly therafter, the budget to eliminate al-Qaeda is increased five-fold from the previous administration. A comprehensive plan is presented to Bush a day before 9/11. Clearly Bush, Rice, et al were dangerously derelict in their duties and should be blamed for 9/11.
You fail to mention a number of facts that do indeed cast a very "poor" light on Condi Rice and George Tenet. I'm not going to get into them now because I will risk repeating myself once again, but the fact of the matter is that there was a tremendous amount of "evidence" leading up to 911 and yet there wasn't one single meeting of the "principals". There were "one-on-one's" but never any kind of an intelligence meeting by all intelligence agencies like the one's that occurred around the time of the Millennium. And what makes it worse is the fact that Condi Rice takes no responsibility for the tragedy of 911. The buck stopped at her desk, yet she never indicated in any of her testimony on Thursday that "she" or "her office" failed. Richard Clarke admitted that he failed, and that his CSG failed but Condi Rice would not admit anything of the sort. Why is that? There were 70 full fledge "on-going" investigations of al-Qaida by the FBI not too mention all sorts of terrorist "chatter" during the summer of 2001 and yet no bells went off with Condi Rice. In fact, the administration did not issue its first presidential national security directive on al-Qaeda until September 4th of 2001, just a week before the attacks on NY and Washington, DC. But by that time it was obviously too late. Ms. Rice acknowledged the "structural dysfunctionality" that exists between the 2 intelligence agencies, the FBI and the CIA, sharing information, but since when did this become a "revelation"? Anyone who has spent time in Washington knows this to be true. It is nothing new. Yet, Ms. Rice had no leadership qualities or vision to get thru this obvious intelligence dysfunction and require daily intelligence meetings that concerned ALL principals. She was convinced that the "threat spike" had all the makings of an attack overseas such as in the Persian Gulf region, Israel or at the G-8 Summit in Genoa, Italy. Yet, perhaps in her "Cold War" analyst background she lacked the imagination to conceive of an attack on U.S. soil, and on September 11th, 2001 we paid dearly for it. I would also go on to say that in Ms. Rice's testimony she shows just how "unaccountable" she is when she states from May 16th, 2002 that "no one could have imagined the use of planes as weapons" yet it had been known for quite sometime thru both intelligence agencies and even a congressional subcommittee that "airplanes could be used as weapons by terrorists". Hmmmm . . .
George Tenet is a Democrat. I have written many times I thought it was a mistake to retain him. As you correctly point out, there is plenty of blame for the Cole to throw around. In my judgment however, a lot of it has to land on the State Department. The only reason the Cole was refueling in Aden was to try to bolster ties with that country. I believe the Ambassador there at the time was a career foreign service officer, as she initially was to have a major role in Iraq until a few people blew their stacks over it after reviewing her disastrous tour in the Yemen. Anyway, I am not trying to politicize this incident, although this thread seems to have been started for that purpose. I am merely stating it is easier to prevent incidents like the Cole than to respond to them.
Now I ask you . . . Why do you think that George Bush continues to keep George Tenet on as Director of the CIA? With all of these screw-ups on Tenet's watch, why is he still the Director of the CIA? I would suggest that it is because Bush knows damn well that Tenet "warned" him of an attack by al-Qaida on U.S. soil and Bush instead, decided to head down to Crawford, Texas so that he could chop some wood. If Bush were to let Tenet go, it would be just one more "book-deal" and bad PR for the Administration, making former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill and Richard Clarke's books look like Sesame Street!
I don't really understand this excuse. I thought the job of the NSA, was to look at reports from both, or all, sources, and connect the dots? If the NSA cannot connect dots, what good is the position anyway? The FBI and CIA are supposed to be separate. Why should the FBI and CIA be doing the NSAs job? Just more blame game, you ask me.
Waggie, so very interesting how you fail to discuss any of Clarke's 2002 interview or the Clinton administration's two-year span of sitting on their asses. More than two years, I would argue, many more. You want to talk about evidence leading up to 9/11? How about the 1993 WTC bombing? Clinton's response: implementation of a policy of "continued monitoring." Here is the FIRST TERRORIST ATTACK ON US SOIL, and Clinton's response is essentially ZERO. How about the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing which killed 19 Americans and wounded hundreds more? Clinton's response: nothing. How about the 1998 US Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, killing over 250 people - many of them Americans - and wounding over 5000 more? Bin-laden is behind this, boasting about it all over the world. Clinton's response: cruise missile attacks on suspected terrorist training camps in Afghanistan and a pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum, Sudan. The net effect of this action is a couple of dead camels. How about the USS Cole attack, which killed 17 US sailors? Clinton's response: ordered U.S. Navy ships into the Yemeni region and directed ground forces to step up their security measures. Very decisive and effective. How about Sudan offering bin-Laden to us in 1996? Clinton's response: let bin-Laden leave for Afghanistan and safe haven to nurture the al-Qaeda network. Brilliant move. How about Clinton ignoring his own Sec. of Def. William Cohen's warning about a possible attack on the WTC in 1999? How about intelligence being such a low priority that Clinton never met with his first CIA Director James Woolsey, after his initial interview? Or that the CIA was so decimated by budget cuts and poor organization that nobody in the organization could even speak Pashtun, the native tongue of the Taliban and al Qaeda? How about from the time Clinton took office until May of 1995, a Presidential Decision Directive, PDD 39, sat in the National Security Council, in the In Box of one of the officials with no action taken. What was PDD 39? Only the document defining what the missions and roles were of combating terrorism. Only after Oklahoma City wad PDD 39 dusted off and looked at. Rice said yesterday: From January 20th through September 10th, the president received at these daily meetings more than 40 briefing items on al-Qaida, and 13 of those were in response to questions he or his top advisers posed. And FYI, Wag, a national security directive isn't the same as writing a Post-It note. It is the cumulation of months of analysis and study. The "principals" you speak of were in place only from April (Clarke said so). Oh yeah, that makes a lot of sense! You have warnings of a VAGUE, NON-SPECIFIC threat, so what do you do? Gather ALL the principals on a DAILY basis to.....what? Yeah, that's why Rice met with Dick Clarke on July 5 and tasked him "to make sure that domestic agencies were aware of the heightened threat period and were taking appropriate steps to respond, even though we did not have specific threats to the homeland." Wag, as Rice said, the FAA issued at least five civil aviation security information circulars to all U.S. airlines and airport security personnel, including specific warnings about the possibility of hijacking. And remember, the 9/11 perpetrators took over the planes with box cutters, not exactly illegal items at the time. Okay, Wag, I'm listening. I've done you the courtest of responding to your points, so try to address the questions posed, for once, instead of running off on another tangent.
hapaboy, You are making some excellent points. I believe it was you who posted a column by Clifford May that made a very telling point, namely that the 9/11 Commission is badly off ocurse. Instead of trying to blame people, which becomes inherently political, it should be focusing on ways to prevent future attacks. Being able to parade Richard Clrake up there in the middle of an election was just too tempting though, and dickheads like Richard Ben-Vineste apparently lack the depth to do anything but try to score cheap points. All this shows the wisdom of those who were against the commssion from the start and who did not want to extend it. Typically however, these Republicans lacked the backbone to make a stand and rolled over at the first resistance. So now we have Condi Rice having to divert her attention from serious crises in Iraq and North Korea to prep for a public anal exam. After the fact hindsight is always 20-20. Vague or uncorroborated warnings or suspicions become smoking guns that only the criminally negligent would have ignored. The hundreds or thousands of items that led nowhere are conveniently overlooked. There is some legitimate blame to assess. The FAA should be looked into intensively. Norman Mineta expressly made avoiding even the appearance of profiling a priority, thereby removing a powerful weapon from security forces. He still has his job, as do the idiots that made air travel such a nightmare after 9/11. They confiscated millions of nail clippers, but were too dense to see that cockpit doors should have been made secure. They force 80 year olds grannies to strip to be searched by foreigners who barely speak english working as screeners, but make it next to impossible for pilots to carry a sidearm. Waggie is right, port security is a joke, as is border security. Many cities have express policies of not cooperating with the INS, so illegals run free with little chance of being apprehended. Other than round up a few thousand middle easteners who were here illegally, I see very little that has been done to prevent another attack. The fact that there have not been any foreign directed attacks shows how effective that roundup was. Still, we allow tens of thousands to come here from muslim countries and disappear into our society. There is much for the 9/11 Commission to focus on. Tragically they have squandered that opportunity to play politics.
hapaboy, You are making some excellent points. I believe it was you who posted a column by Clifford May that made a very telling point, namely that the 9/11 Commission is badly off ocurse. Instead of trying to blame people, which becomes inherently political, it should be focusing on ways to prevent future attacks. Being able to parade Richard Clrake up there in the middle of an election was just too tempting though, and dickheads like Richard Ben-Vineste apparently lack the depth to do anything but try to score cheap points. All this shows the wisdom of those who were against the commssion from the start and who did not want to extend it. Typically however, these Republicans lacked the backbone to make a stand and rolled over at the first resistance. So now we have Condi Rice having to divert her attention from serious crises in Iraq and North Korea to prep for a public anal exam. After the fact hindsight is always 20-20. Vague or uncorroborated warnings or suspicions become smoking guns that only the criminally negligent would have ignored. The hundreds or thousands of items that led nowhere are conveniently overlooked. There is some legitimate blame to assess. The FAA should be looked into intensively. Norman Mineta expressly made avoiding even the appearance of profiling a priority, thereby removing a powerful weapon from security forces. He still has his job, as do the idiots that made air travel such a nightmare after 9/11. They confiscated millions of nail clippers, but were too dense to see that cockpit doors should have been made secure. They force 80 year olds grannies to strip to be searched by foreigners who barely speak english working as screeners, but make it next to impossible for pilots to carry a sidearm. Waggie is right, port security is a joke, as is border security. Many cities have express policies of not cooperating with the INS, so illegals run free with little chance of being apprehended. Other than round up a few thousand middle easteners who were here illegally, I see very little that has been done to prevent another attack. The fact that there have not been any foreign directed attacks shows how effective that roundup was. Still, we allow tens of thousands to come here from muslim countries and disappear into our society. There is much for the 9/11 Commission to focus on. Tragically they have squandered that opportunity.
hapaboy, You are making some excellent points. I believe it was you who posted a column by Clifford May that made a very telling point, namely that the 9/11 Commission is badly off ocurse. Instead of trying to blame people, which becomes inherently political, it should be focusing on ways to prevent future attacks. Being able to parade Richard Clrake up there in the middle of an election was just too tempting though, and dickheads like Richard Ben-Vineste apparently lack the depth to do anything but try to score cheap points. All this shows the wisdom of those who were against the commssion from the start and who did not want to extend it. Typically however, these Republicans lacked the backbone to make a stand and rolled over at the first resistance. So now we have Condi Rice having to divert her attention from serious crises in Iraq and North Korea to prep for a public anal exam. After the fact hindsight is always 20-20. Vague or uncorroborated warnings or suspicions become smoking guns that only the criminally negligent would have ignored. The hundreds or thousands of items that led nowhere are conveniently overlooked. There is some legitimate blame to assess. The FAA should be looked into intensively. Norman Mineta expressly made avoiding even the appearance of profiling a priority, thereby removing a powerful weapon from security forces. He still has his job, as do the idiots that made air travel such a nightmare after 9/11. They confiscated millions of nail clippers, but were too dense to see that cockpit doors should have been made secure. They force 80 year olds grannies to strip to be searched by foreigners who barely speak english working as screeners, but make it next to impossible for pilots to carry a sidearm. Waggie is right, port security is a joke, as is border security. Many cities have express policies of not cooperating with the INS, so illegals run free with little chance of being apprehended. Other than round up a few thousand middle easteners who were here illegally, I see very little that has been done to prevent another attack. The fact that there have not been any foreign directed attacks shows how effective that roundup was. Still, we allow tens of thousands to come here from muslim countries and disappear into our society. There is much for the 9/11 Commission to focus on. Tragically they have squandered that opportunity.
AAA, I read May's article but I don't believe I posted it. Fine article. I totally agree that there are huge gaps in our security measures, many of which, as you pointed out, are assinine. The issue of the cockpit doors is especially troubling. We should have done that a decade ago if not sooner. One would think that we would have consulted a long time ago with the experts in dealing with terrorism - the Israelis - and followed their security methods. I believe an EL AL plane has never been hijacked since they secured their cockpit doors. IMHO our country will never be very secure, not only because of the sheer impossibility of defending not only every possible infrastructure target and symbolic targets (i.e. WTC) but public places of business, worship, entertainment, etc., but because the necessary measures we would have to take - intense profiling, invasion of privacy, the exponential increase in authority given to law enforcement - will never be agreed to by the American people. Some of the hysterical anti-Bushers here on ET will say those measures are already being taken, but they have not gone anywhere near as far as they could go if allowed to. Personally I'm not in favor of turning our country into a police state in order to feel a little safer from an enemy we can never truly be safe from, but I do agree with you that we could and need to be doing much, much more. And yeah, Condi Rice did have her public anal exam, but I thought she did very well and made the commission schmucks lick their rectal probes.