August 27, 2005
9/11: Bush's Arrogance, Incompetence & Partisanship*
Since there wasn't political or public support for wiping out al-Qaeda before the Sept. 11 attacks, neither Presidents Clinton or Bush deserve blame for not taking such action. However, failing to prevent the attacks, or even trying to prevent the attacks, is something else. And the country should know who is responsible for that breakdown so they can be held accountable.
Unfortunately, the 9/11 Investigating Commission did not place blame directly on anyone or any government agency. But with all the partisanship in Washington and around the country as nasty as it is, that's not a surprise.
The Partisanship
While we can throw our hands up and blame both parties for all this partisanship, I believe that President Bush not only takes pleasure in the hostility, but allowed Karl Rove to manufacture it. Here's why:
George Bush learned from his father that if you lose your base of support, an incumbent President can not get reelected. And he knew that if his incompetence was responsible for not even trying to prevent the 9/11 attacks, he wouldn't be able to run for the GOP nomination, let alone win a second term.
So how do you avoid responsibly for 9/11 and keep your base? By creating such a vicious partisan atmosphere that both sides start screaming at each other.
Obviously, the discourse between the two parties was already inflamed in the spring of 2004. But with the 9/11 investigation coming to a close, a
surge
Since there wasn't political or public support for wiping out al-Qaeda before the Sept. 11 attacks, neither Presidents Clinton or Bush deserve blame for not taking such action. However, failing to prevent the attacks, or even trying to prevent the attacks, is something else. And the country should know who is responsible for that breakdown so they can be held accountable.
Unfortunately, the 9/11 Investigating Commission did not place blame directly on anyone or any government agency. But with all the partisanship in Washington and around the country as nasty as it is, that's not a surprise.
The Partisanship
While we can throw our hands up and blame both parties for all this partisanship, I believe that President Bush not only takes pleasure in the hostility, but allowed Karl Rove to manufacture it. Here's why:
George Bush learned from his father that if you lose your base of support, an incumbent President can not get reelected. And he knew that if his incompetence was responsible for not even trying to prevent the 9/11 attacks, he wouldn't be able to run for the GOP nomination, let alone win a second term.
So how do you avoid responsibly for 9/11 and keep your base? By creating such a vicious partisan atmosphere that both sides start screaming at each other.
Obviously, the discourse between the two parties was already inflamed in the spring of 2004. But with the 9/11 investigation coming to a close, a surge of violence and American casualties in Iraq, and the election seven months away, Rove needed to add fuel to the fire; and Condelezza Rice’s public testimony before the 9/11 Commission was the perfect gas pump (Rice needed a diversion anyway because all she had going in was spin).Rove knew she’d eventually have to appear. But to get this going he needed to create animosity between her and the Committee well before she stepped into the hearing room. So the White House turned down the Commission's "invitation" citing "executive privilege" because it "would be counter to long-standing precedent." And that gave Rove the incredulous response he was looking for.
This also gave Rice the opportunity to get her talking points out to the Republican base beforehand by appearing on all the news shows. And since she apparently had more time for television, this assured a contentious atmosphere between Rice and the Commission - and therefore, between Democrats and Republicans - when she finally showed up. And that’s exactly what Rove was counting on because for all intents and purposes, her appearance might as well have been on Crossfire. And in a polarized political environment like that, not only do the facts get muddied - an added bonus - but President’s Bush's conservative base will stick by him because they’re shouting at "liberals."
"Mission accomplished."
But even more important, Rove created such a firestorm of nasty partisanship surrounding the 9/11 Commission and their final report, it fended off attacks and accusations against President Bush because any accusation would be, well, a "partisan attack."
The Incompetence
If Mr. Bush was truly going after al-Qaeda in 2001, why didn't he do anything in response to the attack on the USS Cole? Why was he befriending the Taliban, a ruthless regime that was protecting al-Qaeda, by not only giving them tens of millions of dollars in aid, but by trying to cut a deal with them to build a gas pipeline across Afghanistan?
Why did the Bush adminstration turn down a deal in early 2001 in which they could have killed Osama bin Laden?
And if Mr. Bush didn’t approve of Richard Clarke’s plan to "roll back" al-Qaeda (which was originally presented to Clinton National Security Advisor Sandy Berger in December but wasn’t implement because they didn’t want to hand the Bush Administration a war when they took office on Jan. 20), why didn’t he call on the military to come up with another option?
Also, if Mr. Bush wasn't ignoring the al-Qaeda threat in 2001, why hasn't he told us what actions or preventative measures he took prior to 9/11? Why hasn't he shown any anger for what happened? Why didn't he fire anyone? Why did he give CIA Director George Tenet a medal? And why has he done everything possible to avoid legitimate investigations that would tell us why he wasn't better informed?
The answer is obvious: he was grossly incompetent and deserves blame.
Consider that in early 2001, Mr. Bush was given a report completed by a commission headed by former Senators Warren Rudman and Gary Hart. It detailed the terrorist threats the country was facing, warned of a "likely" attack and not only called for a new "Homeland Security Agency," but the "most sweeping renovation of US defense...since...the landmark National Security Act of 1947."
President Bush put Dick Cheney in charge of this massive undertaking, but he apparently didn't think it was all that important because he never got to it. So this alarming report, with all its findings and recommendations, went ignored by the Bush administration.
Then consider that President Bush, who was directly responsible for the nation's security in 2001:
- Was explicitly warned to the growing al-Qaeda threat by President Clinton and his staff.
- From Jan. 20 to Sept. 10, 2001 there were 40 intelligence articles in the "Presidents Daily Briefs" (PDB) that mentioned the growing threat from bin Laden.
- There were threats of terrorists using planes to attack the G8 Summit President Bush had attended in Italy that July. And bin Laden had threatened to assassinate Mr. Bush at the summit. The threats were taken so seriously, that Mr. Bush may have - and probably did - spend his overnights at a U.S. military base or on an aircraft carrier.
- October 2006 insert: In July, George Tenet warned Condoleezza Rice of an "imminent" al-Qaeda attack.
- That summer, the US military in the Mediterranean was on "heightened alert-status" because of intelligence reports they received, the military in the Persian Gulf moved to its "highest state of alert" on the basis of a "credible...threat," and intelligence services were picking up so much "chatter" that they were "scared" American forces could be attacked anywhere.
- The August 6 PDB titled "Bin Laden DETERMINED to STRIKE in U.S.," warned of "suspicious activity in THIS country consistent with preparations for HIJACKINGS or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in NEW YORK" and concluded "the FBI is conducting approximately 70 full-field investigations throughout the U.S. that it considers bin Laden-related." (caps mine)
Granted, the intelligence wasn't specific. But at this point you'd think a President of the United States - who has a job description like none other - would have the imagination to put two and two and two and two and two together and demand specifics. President Bush demanded his fishing pole instead.
It proved to be a costly outing because it was at this point when the FBI started to unknowingly pick up pieces to the 9/11 plot:
- In July, agent Kenneth Williams wrote what is now known as the "Phoenex Memo" which said "eight apparent Islamic radicals...were attending flight schools in Arizona" and that "supporters" of bin Laden were "attending civil aviation universities/colleges in Arizona."
- In August, Zacarias Moussaoui, who was taking flying lessons in Minnesota, and presumably the 20th hijacker, was arrested.
- The FBI was tracking at least two 9/11 hijackers that had entered the country that summer.
At the very least President Bush could have warned the FAA about the possibility of a hijacking so the airlines would have been better prepared (mace in the cockpits?). But he didn’t.
The Arrogance
When Mr. Bush took office, his actions and policies on just about every issue, big and small, was totally opposite of whatever President Clinton did because of the nasty partisan hatred Republicans had of him (which is probably the real reason why President Bush ignored Richard Clarke’s al-Qaeda plan). And it went a lot further than Mr. Clinton being a Democrat and Mr. Bush being a Republican. This was extremely personal and political. So when Mr. Clinton and his staff warned Mr. Bush and his staff to the growing al-Qaeda threat, there was little chance that the Bush White House - with all their pride, spite, obstinance, arrogance and immaturity- was going to act on it because it would have looked as if President Clinton told them to. Instead they focused on their own agenda in 2001: Iraq and missile defense (ironically, if President Clinton and his staff did not warn Mr. Bush about al-Qaeda, he just might have reacted to the threats).
So is it possible that the reason why President Bush didn't do anything after the first plane struck the WTC - and looked as clueless as he did in the classroom after the second plane hit - was because if he reacted to it immediately for what it was, a terrorist attack, he'd be admitting he did have reason to believe something like that could occur, and would then be forced to admit that he failed to do anything about the threat?
Remember, Mr. Bush opposed creation of the 9/11 Commission, he stonewalled the Commission every step of the way, and wouldn't testify before the Commission unless Dick Cheney appeared with him. Incredibly, neither was put under oath and no formal transcript of their testimony was taken.
Also, Mr. Bush hasn't shown one ounce of contrition, offered the smallest of apologies, or admitted a single mistake...about anything. And when it comes to the intelligence failures regarding Iraq's WMDs, he’s consistently brushed aside all personal responsibility for that as well by maintaining an obstinate, haughty and pugnacious attitude (anyone see a pattern here?).
If I was President and failed to prevent the 9/11 attacks because of sloppy intelligence, and then started an unnecessary war - that turned into a colossal disaster - based on information that (supposedly) couldn't have been more wrong, I'd be furious and would have demanded complete and thorough investigations to see how I could have failed my Presidential Oath so miserably. Twice. The 3,000 people killed on 9/11 and our troops in Iraq deserve that much.
But instead, all Mr. Bush has done is spin, conduct damage control and rile up his base in an enraged partisan environment so he can avoid having the finger of blame pointed on himself; and in turn, created such animosity between both parties, that determining who is responsible for allowing the 9/11 attacks - or at least finding out why no attempt was made to prevent them - would be, well, too partisan to have. How convenient.
Conclusion
Presidents can set a tone. Either an honest tone where we can have sensible intellectual discussions, or a heated nasty tone, where insults, ridicule and rhetoric is shouted back and forth.
You can be certain that a truly responsible President would have acted like one and set an honest tone from the very beginning by embracing independent inquiries into 9/11 and Iraq's WMDs. But instead, Mr. Bush decided to set an arrogant, obstructive, obfuscating and belligerent tone. And guess what? He secured his base.
It's an outrage that President Bush would manufacture such divisive partisanship out of the 9/11 attacks, which he failed to prevent - and the disaster in Iraq, which he created - to ensure his political survival. But it’s also ironic since he declared himself "a uniter, not a divider" during the 2000 campaign. However, that shouldn't come as a surprise either.
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