Secretary of State Colin Powell is comes back from a trip to Afghanistan and is pounding his fist on the table for more troops committed to the region. Mind you, there are only 11,000 trips there at the time. But Donald Rumsfeld doesn't want to allocate any military resources away from Iraq. And thus, Powell gets shot down and the war on terror again takes a back seat to an obsession with Iraq.
The NSA to Gerald Ford and George Bush, Sr. August 15th, 2002 The Wall Street Journal But the central point is that any campaign against Iraq, whatever the strategy, cost and risks, is certain to divert us for some indefinite period from our war on terrorism. Worse, there is a virtual consensus in the world against an attack on Iraq at this time. So long as that sentiment persists, it would require the U.S. to pursue a virtual go-it-alone strategy against Iraq, making any military operations correspondingly more difficult and expensive. The most serious cost, however, would be to the war on terrorism. Ignoring that clear sentiment would result in a serious degradation in international cooperation with us against terrorism. And make no mistake, we simply cannot win that war without enthusiastic international cooperation, especially on intelligence. Possibly the most dire consequences would be the effect in the region. The shared view in the region is that Iraq is principally an obsession of the U.S. The obsession of the region, however, is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. If we were seen to be turning our backs on that bitter conflict -- which the region, rightly or wrongly, perceives to be clearly within our power to resolve -- in order to go after Iraq, there would be an explosion of outrage against us. We would be seen as ignoring a key interest of the Muslim world in order to satisfy what is seen to be a narrow American interest. Even without Israeli involvement, the results could well destabilize Arab regimes in the region, ironically facilitating one of Saddam's strategic objectives. At a minimum, it would stifle any cooperation on terrorism, and could even swell the ranks of the terrorists. Conversely, the more progress we make in the war on terrorism, and the more we are seen to be committed to resolving the Israel-Palestinian issue, the greater will be the international support for going after Saddam. If we are truly serious about the war on terrorism, it must remain our top priority. However, should Saddam Hussein be found to be clearly implicated in the events of Sept. 11, that could make him a key counterterrorist target, rather than a competing priority, and significantly shift world opinion toward support for regime change. http://econ161.berkeley.edu/movable_type/archives/000504.html
These weren't Democrats that were disagreeing with Bush's invasion of Iraq and his policy towards diverting resources and attention away from terrorism, mind you . . . they were senior officials of previous Republican administrations, one of whom being Brent Scowcroft who was the National Security Advisor under George Bush, Sr. I beg to differ with anyone that sees Richard Clarke's assessment of the Bush Administration's response to terrorism and Iraq as that much different than that of former NSA, Brent Scowcroft. Thus, Richard Clarke isn't unique in his very "public" assessment, book or no bookdeal.
Yes I have answered your question..........not once but twice! In my original post I said he(Clinton) cut CIA and Defense funding. And in my second post I wrote it is hard to get the job done with your hands tied behind your back. What part of that do you not understand?? How is/was Tenet suppose to perform his duties properly when the prior administration was Anti- Military and Cut His Funding?? Let me ask you a question.........If I was paying you $20 an hour to perform a duty and than cut it to $10 would you still perform the same or even still work for me?? I don't think so! I don't think Tenet is a Flunkie and never said so. And again I apologize for your loss in Sep 11, but who was Pres the first time in 93?? Maybe if something was done back then, it wouldn't have happened this time! See my point? Tenet wasn't running the country. Clinton was.
You once again show that you have no idea what you are talking about. And once again, you are so blinded by ideology and partisanship that you simply put forth the same old same old, "It's Clinton's Fault" and perpetuating the myth that Clinton cut defense spending and gutted the military and our fighting forces. Since I have had a longtime association with an electronics defense contractor that currently produces $5 billion in revenues , I think that I have a bit of an understanding about where the DoD budgets have been, and where they are going in the future. The reality is that Bill Clinton's defense budgets roughly tracked the blueprint left by then-defense secretary Dick Cheney in 1992. Furthermore, Clinton insisted the Pentagon maintain a Cold War budget even without a Cold War to protect his party's right flank. For the same reason, Al Gore called for bigger defense budgets during the 2000 Presidential campain than did George W. Bush - - - a fact that almost no one recalls. Between 1992 and 2003, the person who was President for the bulk of that time was . . . Bill Clinton. It's true that President Bush has been throwing money at the Pentagon since Sept. 11th, 2001, but defense planners will tell you that none of the impressive leaps in our military capability have taken place in the last 18 months. You would have to be "deaf, dumb, and blind" to think that the tremendous C4ISR Unmanned Aircraft Vehicles - - -Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaisance were not developed during the Clinton Administration and under military budgets that were supported by the Clinton Administration. Northrop's GlobalHawk saw it's first flight in February 1998. The RQ-1A Predator UAV first flew in 1994 and entered production in 1997, first seeing action in Bosnia in 1995. The Predator and GlobalHawk have more than proven their worth to the war-fighter during all sorts of military operations in Afghanistan, Bosnia, and Iraq, from joint-force military exercises invovling counter-narcotics surveillance, theater missile defense, to littoral warfare and offshore naval operations. The U2 continues to serve as the "Sentinel of Peace" around the world and received the Collier Trophy award for outstanding aeronautical achievment in 1998. Moreover, in Clinton's State of the Union message in January of 1999, Clinton called to increase defense spending by about 110 billion dollars over the next six years. Military planners at the Pentagon had been pressing for the boost in Pentagon spending, and so did congressional Republicans. President Clinton agreed. According to our current National Security Advisor Condi Rice, the Bush Administration "was able to reduce defense spending somewhat at the end of the Cold War," but the Clinton Administration "witlessly accelerated and deepened these cuts." Actually, in the Bush Administration's four years, defense spending fell by 18 percent -- more than 4 percent each year. In the Clinton administration's seven years, defense spending had fallen by slightly less than 10 percent, which is slightly more than 1 percent each year. Moreover, Rice conveniently ignores the six-year plan George Bush presented to Congress in January 1993, which projected a continuing decline in defense spending through 1999. Clinton's actual defense budgets were $2 billion more than the final Bush defense plan for 1994-99, as Daniel Goure and Jeffrey Ranney explain in their new book, Averting the Defense Train Wreck in the New Millennium. Condoleezza Rice then details the "devastating results" of Clinton's large cuts on the U.S. military. According to her, readiness has declined, training has suffered, pay has slipped 15 percent below civilian equivalents, the services are forced to cannibalize existing equipment, and the military has much difficulty recruiting and retaining people. Leaving aside whether these (at best, misleading) statements are true and resulted from Clinton's reductions, these conditions are not related to the amount of money spent on defense. The nonpay portion of the operations and maintenance account in the defense budget, which funds training, readiness, and maintenance, is 13 percent higher now than when George Bush, Sr left office.Moreover, if the spending on operations and maintenance is calculated on a per capita basis, it is nearly 40 percent higher today than in 1993. Rice also accuses the Clinton administration of cutting defense spending to its lowest point as a percentage of GDP since Pearl Harbor. Using shares of GDP as a measure of military capability is both meaningless and misleading. If Clinton had not presided over such an extraordinary period of economic growth, his current defense budget might account for four, instead of three, percent of GDP. Should he be castigated for helping the economy grow? By Rice's GDP standard, Jimmy Carter was better for defense than George Bush. Most troubling is Rice's suggestion that the U.S. armed forces in 2000 resemble what they were in 1940. But 60 years ago, our military ranked 16th in the world (between Portugal and Romania), was one-tenth the size of Germany's military, and had only 1.6 percent of the world's military personnel. The best way to measure the adequacy of defense spending is to compare it with that of other nations. During the Clinton administration, the U.S. share of worldwide military spending has increased. America now outspends all of its adversaries or potential adversaries combined. Together with its allies, it accounts for nearly 80 percent of the world's military expenditures. U.S. Trade representative Robert Zoellick and a member of President Bush's cabinet is also off base in his critique of the Clinton administration. He writes that it has cut the military by around 40 percent. But it was the Bush administration that reduced the active forces by 444,000, or 21 percent, in four years, unlike Clinton, who cut it only 16 percent over seven years. Reading Rice's and Zoellick's critiques of Clinton's defense budget reminds one of the early days of the Reagan administration, when several of the president's lieutenants complained about the 1970s as the "decade of neglect of defense spending." They should be reminded that in the first seven years of that decade, the Republicans were in charge and that during President Carter's tenure, defense spending actually increased. Unfortunately, Rice's and Zoellick's "facts" found their way into presidential candidate George W. Bush's September 1999 speech on defense policy. And I guess people like you took it word for word, as if it was the truth. It is also interesting to note that George Wilson's book, which cites former Air Force Chief of Staff Ron Fogelman and former Army Deputy Chief of Staff Jay Gardner as stating that an annual defense budget of $250 billion, plus inflation, should be plenty for the armed services in the post-Cold War period if spent properly. The Defense Budget in 2000 was $280 billion. Finally, you fail to have much of a grasp on history since you fail to remember that during the Cold War, not a single Republican president, except Ronald Reagan, allowed defense spending to increase. Once again Cuz, you have absolutely no command of the facts. All you do is fall prey, in typical fashion to the typical "partisanship" that is often displayed on these message boards. You are like a little kid that jumps up and down crying for his Mommies attention, but has nothing more to say than BLAH BLAH BLAH. There are no facts to your post. No substance. Without question, you have showed yourself to be very ignorant.
What does defense spending have to do with George Tenet's ability to perform his duties on August 6th, of 2001 when there is a briefing with the heading: "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in the U.S." and mentions the word "hijacking" in it? Could you please answer me that? The CIA had been tracking two of the al-Qaida hijackers and never communicated their whereabouts or relayed the agency's intelligence of these two Arab men that had enrolled in flight schools to the FBI. That is a fact. Furthermore, the FAA was never notified by the CIA either. There was never a terrorist "watchlist" developed and put into action with the FAA. There was never a "manhunt" by the FBI regarding these two individuals because they were not told about the "activities" of these men until it was way late in the ballgame. There was a tremendous lack of communication between intelligence and law-enforcement agencies. But no. Rather than place some blame on Tenet, Mueller, Rice, and George Bush . . . all you can do is say that it's Bill Clinton's fault. How absurd.
What's wrong??? Let me know when you can actually speak from substance rather than partisan political rhetoric.
Oh, he'll probably reply but with the usual personal attacks, epithets and nonsense. What do you expect...he believes that Fox News presents balanced reporting...duh. m
And in the meantime, I will give you some interesting food for thought regarding John O'Neill, a Deputy Director of the FBI: Are you aware of the situation surrounding John OâNeill? He was a Deputy Director of the FBI, and was the chief bin Laden hunter. He investigated the first Twin Towers bombing, he investigated the Khobar Towers bombing, he investigated the bombing of our embassies in Africa, and he investigated the bombing of the USS Cole. He was the guy in government who knew everything about bin Laden, and he quit the FBI in protest three weeks before 9/11. He quit because he said he was not being allowed to investigate terror connections to Saudi Arabia, because such investigations threatened the petroleum business we do with that nation. OâNeill quit, took a job as chief of security at the World Trade Center, and died doing his job on September 11. The fact that he was thwarted in his terrorism investigations clearly left a hole in our intelligence capabilities regarding these threats â the guy who knew the most about it was not allowed to pursue those connections to the greatest possible degree. Now what was it you were saying about how the Bush Administration didn't drop the ball heading into 911?