Speedkill

I figure I should put down my opinion on everything surrounding 9/11 and reactions to terrorism beforehand. I was gonna wait until I finished Ghost Wars, but I decided I’ll just append this post in the event it changes my mind on something. So here goes.

Everyone knows the story of how we poured billions into Afghanistan in an effort to harrass the Soviets and those people, mostly the ones recruited from abroad and trained started the Islamic terrorist movement we see today. Whether it was an unforseeable error or anti-Communist zealotry clouding judgement or somewhere in between is something that can be debated elsewhere (I fall somewhere in the middle, for the record). The Clinton administration, like others before it, was slow to recognize the importance. They eventually did, after the Cold War was safely behind us and the first attack on the WTC was perpetrated. Overall, they did ok, but obviously not good enough. It wasn’t focused upon (as Reno said the other day, Oklahoma City and domestic terrorism was more important), but it appears they were trying. My feeling is that the CIA and administration caution in attacking certain targets was justified. Collateral damage is something that ultimately hurts our cause. If we bomb places on any shred of evidence and we end up hitting correct and meaningful targets, say 50-60% of the time, we’ve hurt ourselves greatly. We’ve pissed off innumerable people and the younger ones could fall quite easily into Islamic terrorism. With an organization like al Qaeda, which is decentralized, consisting of loosely connected cells, strikes against leadership figures, while still important, become less so. Reducing the organization to nothing by violence would take an unprecendented and implausible amount of coordination and cooperation by a large number of states. So, we have to “drain the swamp” so to speak. How do we do that? Well, Palestine-Israel comes to mind. As does Iraq, but that’s later. The collateral damage factor has to be weighed against the operational damage done. Obviously, that balance was tilted more to avoiding collateral damage before 9/11. It needed to be farter to operational damage. A mistake, but hardly something to attack a person over.

Before I move into Bush 2.0′s term, I should mention the Cole bombing. It was definitely a mistake that we didn’t retaliate. Blame goes for both Clinton and Bush on this.

Ok, Bush. By the end of Clinton’s term, they knew al Qaeda was a problem. They had thwarted the millenium plot, and they wanted to make sure Bush’s administration understood the threat. The “biggest issue of your administration” I think is the quote. Some kind of brief was passed on, a plan, a list of options, whatever. Clarke had a strategy. Nothing was done until September 4th, basically. Briefings in late summer for Bush were titled things like “Bin Laden planning multiple operations,” “Bin Laden network’s plans advancing” and “Bin Laden threats are real.” And of course, “Bin Laden determined to strike inside U.S.” I tend to think the September 4th meeting and adopted policies was a reaction to these warnings. Without the spike in warnings, I’m not sure what they decided then would have been adopted. The don’t appear to have done anything else. They cut domestic counter-terror funding and it wasn’t listed as a priority of Ashcroft. Now, I have no idea whether it would have been stopped. I won’t even guess how likely it was. We stopped the millenium plots, but we can’t be sure that would happen again. I tend to think the search for blame is irrelevent. The important thing is that they wanted to attack us and carried it out to a point, not that we didn’t stop it at the right point. The reality should be the same.

I think all in all most of the blame can be put on the FBI and immigration. Simply not following procedure let some of the hijackers into the country. The FBI had the information but it didn’t filter up. Now, you can criticize Bush for not pressing the FBI for anything on these people enough. But the information should make it up without that. The Patriot Act fixed some problems in the communication and sharing of intelligence, but it also has some terrible provisions that should be removed immediately. The point of those organizations is to protect us according to the rules we have set. The administration shouldn’t have to make these organizations do their job. Though, in the current climate (or pre-9/11 climate) you have to understand the reality.

EDIT: I forgot the main reason for writing this post: to blame organizational communication.

It’s out. As was predicted, not a bombshell, but not helpful to the Bush administration. Key paragraphs:

Nevertheless, FBI information since that time indicates patterns 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.

The FBI is conducting approximately 70 full field investigations throughout the US that it considers Bin Ladin-related. CIA and the FBI are investigating a call to our Embassy in UAE in May saying that a group of Bin Ladin supporters was in the US planning attacks with explosives.

What happened when we had similar reports in 1999? We went on alert. What happened this time? Silence.

It ends with a bang. Also, there is some question as to whether the notification times NORAD lists are correct and that my “took longer to get off it’s flight path” statement is kind of silly. And maybe the claims about Andrews. Eh, I’m not looking good. This seems to be a good essay on it.

Jeff says:
Hi

Bush is the Anti-Christ says:
hi

Jeff says:
I read your post on Metalforums.

Bush is the Anti-Christ says:
nice

Jeff says:
Got something for you to read: http://mckinneysucks.blogspot.com/2002_06_01_mckinneysucks_archive.html#77997492

Jeff says:
I’ll be on a while if you have questions about it or anything (I didn’t write, just to be clear)

Bush is the Anti-Christ says:
you’re trying to tell me the government didn’t know that plane was gonna hit the pentagon and it was 10 miles away from it?

Jeff says:
I’m saying the base 10 miles away is a National Guard base. Not a plain military base. The National Guard is not up and ready 24 hours a day/ 365 days a year.
Read more…

Bush Agrees to Let Rice Testify Publicly

WASHINGTON – President Bush agreed Tuesday to do what he had insisted for weeks he would not: allow National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice to testify publicly and under oath before an independent panel investigating the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

ANOTHER flip flop! Jesus, the guy has no moral principles. Why can’t he pick a stand on an issue and stick with it? What an opportunistic jackass!

Via TPM:

�Mr. Clarke has told two entirely different stories under oath,� Frist said in a speech from the Senate floor, alleging that Clarke said in 2002 that the Bush administration actively sought to address the threat posed by al-Qaida before the attacks.

Frist later retreated from directly accusing Clarke of perjury, telling reporters that he personally had no knowledge that there were any discrepancies between Clarke�s two appearances. But he said, �Until you have him under oath both times, you don�t know.�

Oopsy. On the Bill Frist standard for making accusations, I now believe that Bill Frist has sex with goats, and has lied about it under oath.

Also, it’s too long to quote, but read the end of Marshall’s post here. He’s dead on.

As we all know, no one seems to be able to disprove any of Clarke’s accusations. They’ve gone at his credibility. So what are these accusations, and are any of them actually substantive? We’ll see. (note: all these accusations (not that they originated there) are from RNS)

First, there’s this:

Richard Clarke is deeply wired into the Kerry campaign, and not just through Rand Beers. His main contact is his good friend Jonathan Winer, who�s been Kerry�s chief political operative and investigator through Iran-Contra, BCCI, and all the way back to his days as Lt. Gov of Massachusetts. Jonathan�s been identified publically as one of a handful of people running Kerry�s �shadow state department� along with Beers. The LA Times yesterday had a story quoting Winer as saying he was talking regularly with Clarke while Clarke was still in the White House, and that Clarke was expressing his disgust with the Bushies.

This is the same thing as the Rand Beers silliness. Really, he has two friends who are in the Kerry campaign? Who cares? He’s been around Washington for 30 years, isn’t this expected? The charge is paranoia, plain and simple.

Next up, this:

The media are fascinated with the parts of former White House terrorism czar Richard Clarke�s book that trash President Bush as being out to lunch on the al-Qaida threat before 9/11.

Was he lying then, or is he lying now?

First off, there’s no “lying then or now” in this, seeing as both charges (no links and the Sudan plant) are in the book. Elsewhere in the book he says something to the effect of “any ‘links’ in the two are a minor footnote in comparison to other regimes.” What appears to me to be the case, is that he considers this a minor and sketchy point. Sudan, using bin Laden’s money (no guarantees bin Laden knew who the scientists were), hired some Iraqi scientists. What did Saddam know about it? Much? That’s assuming it’s true, Clarke relegates it to “possible.” It’s not something you could count as a connection, so there’s no contradiction. That said, I’d like to see him asked about it.

Finally, there’s this laundry list of charges:

Was he lying in his praising the Bush terrorism policy in his letter of resignation?

“It has been an enormous privilege to serve you these last 24 months,” said the Jan. 20, 2003, letter from Clarke to Bush. “I will always remember the courage, determination, calm, and leadership you demonstrated on September 11th.”

There’s nothing about policy there. Besides, what are you going to say?

Or was he lying about Bush�s policy to Jim Angle of Fox News (Aug 2002)?

Clarke answers basically every “contradiction” in his testimony.

Or was he lying about Dr. Rice�s reaction to his mentioning al Qiada for the first time?

I don’t see this as a lie. He gave his impression of her reaction. He didn’t say “she’s never heard of al Qaeda” he said “she appeared as though she’d never heard of al Qaeda.” There’s a difference. Whether she knew or not is irrelevent. He’s describing his impression. She looked surprised, confused, annoyed as to the mention of al Qaeda. Maybe she was surprised that he thought they in particular were a threat (after probably dismissing the Clintonite’s warnings). It’s speculation, but there’s nothing to show that he lied.

Or was he lying in his testimony to the committee yesterday (where he admitted that even if the Bush team had followed everyone of his suggestions to the letter, September 11th would have still happened)?

This one I may concede. Here’s his statement to CBS:

He ignored it. He ignored terrorism for months, when maybe we could have done something to stop 9/11. Maybe. We’ll never know.

Though, I wonder if he means in the testimony, we would have needed to know what the FBI knew about the hijackers farther down to have had a chance of preventing it. Still, it’s a contradiction, but one that I don’t think is a big deal. It’s not a fact or event, it’s his opinion. I think you need more than this to say he’s not credible.

Here’s the bottom line: The White House has had the book for 3 months. It can’t rebut any of the charges, with meeting tapes or minutes or what have you.

I was debating whether to post on this, but it’s really the event of the day, so I might as well.

I saw all of Clarke’s testimony and some of Berger’s on TV today. Much of it on Fox News, meaning I saw them bandy about the background briefing from Jim Angle repeatedly. Really, that thing is the best case they have against him. That said, it’s not much of a case. Here’s Josh Marshall:

In any case, the larger point I think is this: Career civil servants working for a given White House do tend to follow that White House’s spin when they’re giving background briefings. That’s hardly a surprise. It’s somewhat in the nature of the enterprise.

That pretty much tells you the whole story.

This is basically what Clarke said at the hearings today (well, the first part). He’s grilled over most of the contradictions in the briefing, and answers them all pretty well, in my opinion. I was expecting Thompson to use something like “If you were spinning then, how can we trust that you aren’t spinning as a result of a grudge now?” But, no.

I think it’s pretty clear the Bush administration didn’t do much up until 9/11. Hey, Bob Woodward agrees. Whether this is because of a lack of interest or a hang up in bureacracy is up for debate. Even if it’s the first, it may not be that indefensible. Though to idolizing Republicans, it would be. Clinton sucked on terrorism, he did nothing, Bush is the right leader! Bush did nothing with the same set of circumstances as Clinton? Nonsense! It can’t be!

It’s been said elsewhere, but you’d think Republicans would take Clarke seriously. A Republican (at least, he voted in the Republican primary) hawk, obviously someone with a Cold Warrior reputation (getting Perle’s help in going around the CIA in getting more Stinger missiles to jihadists in Afghanistan), if Bush were really soft on terrorism, this is the guy you’d see hammering on him. Of course, he hasn’t hammered Clinton, so it creates some cognitive dissonance for Republicans.

Then there are his accusations against the Bush administration on Iraq. They’re pretty easy to believe. Wolfowitz has been a fan of Laurie Mylroie’s tortured work linking Iraq to the WTC bombing in 1993, which reeks of an Iraq obsession. There have been accusations of stovepiping and a department strictly for Iraqi propaganda. The fact that the DoD and Tenet dismissed Feith’s case for Iraq-al Qaeda links, yet it’s still pushed. The fact that they wanted a plan for post War Iraq early in 2001. The fact that they were drawing up plans for the division of Iraqi oil fields in early 2001. And the plan to invade from October 2001. His accusations sound very reasonable, and basically expected in light of the other evidence.

UPDATE: August Pollak has a good post on this.

White House accused of stalling 9/11 panel

Members of both parties are accusing the White House of stonewalling the federal commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks by blocking its demands for documents despite threats of a subpoena.

The 10-member, bipartisan commission has until May 27 to submit a report that also will deal with law enforcement, diplomacy, immigration, commercial aviation and the flow of assets to terror organizations.

Whoa………..it’s like I went back in time…………a couple months.

9/11 commission suggests creating domestic spy agency

The independent commission studying the Sept. 11 terror attacks is considering recommending changes in U.S. intelligence that would go well beyond actions of the Bush administration, including creation of a domestic spy agency modeled after Britain’s MI5.

Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge visited MI5 headquarters during a trip to Britain last year. He later said he doubted the Bush administration would create a similar domestic intelligence agency, because MI5′s powers would be unacceptable under the U.S. Constitution.

First off, I don’t think Bush cares all that much about violating the Constitution. There’s that one thing called the PATRIOT Act that kinda let’s us know his stance on that. But I do agree with Ridge. Let’s just not go here. It appears it was simply incompetance by intelligence agencies that allowed the attacks to happen, not to mention the policies responsible for Middle Eastern anger. I don’t really know exactly what MI5 does, and what Brits think of it, but the basic idea of it, and the fact that this administration would be putting it in place, leads me to be highly suspicious. Or just outright against the idea.

US tries to drop charges against 9/11 ‘conspirator’

US prosecutors attempting to bring a case against the so-called “20th hijacker”, Zacarias Moussaoui, have been forced to ask for all charges against him to be dropped, a legal manoeuvre they hope will keep him from calling other terrorism suspects as defence witnesses.

US district judge Leonie Brinkema has said she would impose a punishment on the government next week for defying the two orders, which gave Moussaoui – a French citizen – the right to question the witnesses through a satellite link.

It appears they’re doing everything they can to circumvent the courts. No surprise, really, but I’m still a bit confused about the whole thing. Are they afraid that he can clear himself, and they’ll lose him? That’s what it seems like to me, they have to find people to punish, and they reached a bit when capturing these people. Not to say they’re innocent, but we’re sure doing a lot more to get around the court than to actually try the guy. Take the evidence you have and try him. I mean, you captured him for a reason (I’m assuming), so try him. This is a bit mind-boggling.