In other words: A discussion of The Bush Administration
Well, the REPORT OF THE JOINT INQUIRY INTO THE TERRORIST ATTACKS OF SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 –
BY THE HOUSE PERMANENT SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE AND THE
SENATE SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE is out. And besides the knowledge that our government has a way with pithy titles and a love for ALL CAPS it also contains a lot of blanked out words. I understand the need for a document this sensitive to have words edited out (don’t want to give away the name or work of a spy do you… unless you’re a "senior white house official"). But word is that some of the edits were politically motivated. Some parts might have been too embarrassing for Bush (like all the stuff on Saudi Arabia) so they were kept Top Secret. Now in high school when your friend whispered in your ear “you know Sammy ain’t your friend, he says all kind of bad things about you when you are out of the room.” Well, that is embarrassing, but also good to know. Well Congress told Bush the same thing (sorta like “you know that prince you had breakfast with in Crawford, well guess who he writes checks to”) but Bush doesn’t want us to know. Is he okay with that?
Anyway, the report can be found here and as I am paranoid I also kept a copy on this site, and it can be found here. It is an acrobat file so you’ll need Adobe Acrobat Reader (free at Adobe’s web site), and for evil editing fun if you have Adobe Acrobat you can just randomly change around the text but make it look like you didn’t.
It is long. I haven’t read it all, and never will. But I did skim it an itsy bitsy tiny weeny bit. And here are two interesting bits:
On page 269/270 it talks about the transition from Clinton to Bush:
Transitions between administrations always take considerable time. For some high level positions, such as National Coordinator for Counterterrorism, it is difficult if not impossible to maintain continuity or an intense daily focus on an issue, if the status of the person holding the position is unclear. Mr. Berger explained that the Clinton Administration did not respond to the October 2000 attack on USS Cole, in part, because it believed that the incoming Bush Administration should handle the matter. However, Bush Administration officials testified that they did not begin their major counterterrorism policy review until April 2001. Thus, it appears that significant slippage in counterterrorism policy may have taken place in late 2000 and early 2001. At least part of this was due to the unresolved status of Mr. [Richard] Clarke as National Coordinator for Counterterrorism and his uncertain mandate to coordinate Bush Administration policy on terrorism and specifically on Bin Ladin.
Now the transition was already a difficult one because it was shortened so dramatically (because Jeb screwed up and didn’t fix the vote in Florida as well as he thought he did). And it was made more difficult because the Clinton administration was busy taking the W key off all executive office computer keyboards. Oh, there is the possibility that part of the reason why the Bush administration didn’t take terrorism seriously at first was because the Clinton administration did. There was a belief that everything Clinton did or thought important was wrong. This is all detailed in an amazing article: They Had A Plan. Unfortunately you’ll need to pay to read the article, but if you haven’t read it yet, you really should, it is an important part of history. Here’s the cover of the issue that contained the article:
NINE MONTHS BEFORE 9/11 the U.S. had a bold plan to attack al-Qaeda. It wasn’t carried out until the towers fell.
Here’s another interesting part of the report (page 447 of the pdf).
[It was not the task of this Joint Inquiry to conduct the kind of extensive investigation that would be required to determine the true significance of such alleged support to the hijackers. On the one hand, it is possible that these kinds of connections could suggest, as indicated in a CIA memorandum, “incontrovertible evidence that there is support for _________________________.” On the other hand, it is also possible that further investigation of these allegations could reveal legitimate, and innocent, explanations for these associations].
Now it might have said, “al-Qaeda in Iraq” there, but if it did, I pretty sure we’d see it. Its pretty well public knowledge that that bit (and the dozen or so blanked out pages after it) was about Saudi Arabia. I like that they say “further investigation” about these allegations. We know that is not going to happen.
Oh, if you were wondering, Iraq is mentioned a few times, but nothing earth shattering. Not much there there as we heard in yesterday’s post about the UPI article. Iraq and 9/11 don’t have many connections, save for the ’91 Gulf War being one of the reasons Al-Qa’ida (that’s how they spell it in the report. Who knew?) hates us so much.
- rob 2:51 PM - [PermaLink] -
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