Not Just Some Terrorist Group
Last week, I posted on how another blogger posted the infamous Department of Defense notes from a meeting on 9/11 meeting in which Sec. Rumsfeld asked officials to figure out a way to use the event to justify an attack on Iraq. Now, another document has been released, by the National Security Archive, this one showing how far in advance intelligence officials tried to warn the Bush Administration about the dangers and reach of Al Qaeda.
A January 25, 2001 National Security Council memo (less than a week after Bush's inauguration, so not exactly last-minute) from counterterrorism coordinator Richard Clarke to national security advisor Condoleezza Rice strongly questioned the notion that Al Qaeda was "just some terrorist group" and stated at its header that they "urgently need a Principals level review on the al Qida network". The memo overall states that dealing with Al Qaeda shouldn't just be another drop in the foreign policy bucket, but treated as a challenge that must be "address[ed] centrally". The memo then outlines the goals of the group and how it could undermine stability in the Middle East. Clarke states "We would make a major error if we underestimated the challenge Al Qida poses".
In the final part of the memo, underminding Ms. Rice's March 22, 2004 statement that "No al Qaeda plan was turned over to the new administration", Clarke outlines a number of possible ways the U.S. could deal with the terror group (by aiding sympathetic allies in the Middle East, etc).
The preview image below is a link to the full document-
Add this to the numerous other warnings, the infamous 'Bin Laden determined to attack inside the U.S.' PDB memo, and other clues, and we have a greater picture of a federal government asleep at the wheel in the months before the attack.
It's a recurring theme with this administration.
And yet, low approval ratings notwithstanding, nobody seems to really care about all of this because we somewhat have accepted the incompetence and spin of the Bush administration as the status quo. We're so used to it by now, that we've almost stopped caring. Oh well. This information is out there; hopefully people will find it.
posted by BlueDuck @ 12:47 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
Wait, wait, wait...
Clarke admitted there was no plan passed on to the Bush administration from the Clinton administration back in a background interview given to several news reporters back in 2002.
He told them that essentially from 1998 on, the Clinton administration had done nothing further about al Qaeda and the Bush administration heeded Clarke's advice and picked up where Clinton left off in February of 2001 in regards to aiding opposition groups to the Taliban and other points that are mentioned in the January 25 memo. Which I might add, look much like a briefing report than a directive for action.
Some key passages:
"I think the overall point is, there was no plan on Al Qaeda that was passed from the Clinton administration to the Bush administration"
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"the Clinton administration had a strategy in place, effectively dating from 1998. And there were a number of issues on the table since 1998. And they remained on the table when that administration went out of office "
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"the Bush administration decided then, you know, in late January, to do two things. One, vigorously pursue the existing policy, including all of the lethal covert action findings, which we've now made public to some extent."
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JIM ANGLE: You're saying that the Bush administration did not stop anything that the Clinton administration was doing while it was making these decisions, and by the end of the summer had increased money for covert action five-fold. Is that correct?
CLARKE: All of that's correct.
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CLARKE: There was never a plan, Andrea. What there was was these two things: One, a description of the existing strategy, which included a description of the threat. And two, those things which had been looked at over the course of two years, and which were still on the table.
QUESTION: So there was nothing that developed, no documents or no new plan of any sort?
CLARKE: There was no new plan.
QUESTION: No new strategy — I mean, I don't want to get into a semantics ...
CLARKE: Plan, strategy — there was no, nothing new.
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ANGLE: So, just to finish up if we could then, so what you're saying is that there was no — 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.
Hmmmm.
Well I guess, given what Clarke said in the memo and then that later testimony, it's semantics about what was a new "plan" and what I suppose were merely suggestions by Clarke in the January memo. So I will concede that Rice was technically correct in her statement, given those parameters.
However, ignoring that one part, the larger point is still that the administration did have numerous warnings about Al Qeada from the very beginning of their stay in office. And they failed to act on these numerous warnings. I'm not saying they ignored them on purpose, but merely out of a mix of laziness and tunnel vision in terms what issues they want to focus on. As Katrina showed, this is a recurring theme with this crew; they are warned that certain things could happen, then got shocked (!) when they actually do. In many ways, this laziness is actually worse than ignoring warnings on purpose. Malice at least has a purpose... what we are getting from this administration is, instead, aimless incompetence. So many of their failings can be traced back to that- their inability to properly govern.
PS- Regarding what plans the Clinton crew had vs. what plans the Bush crew had... I have never stated that the Clinton people should get the gold star on the Al Qaeda hunt issue. They messed up too. That's why the 9/11 Commission called them all in too. I focus on Bush because- a) it actually happened on his watch, ya know and, b) he is (unfortunately) the President right now.
That is, I think, one big difference between liberals and conservatives (ie. not necessarily between capital "R" Republicans and capital "D" Democrats)... that liberals are more willing to give Clinton whatever shit he deserves. Conservatives blame Clinton for everything, but refuse to acknowledge at all the failures of Bush, particularly in regards to 9/11 and the case for war in Iraq. I liked Clinton, thought he was overall very good, but never would have given him the status of hero war president uber-executive whom I counted on for my very survival. That is, however, the status delivered onto Bush by his supporters.
Clinton has already been held accountable for his misdeeds many times over. Bush has been held accountable for nothing and when it's suggested he must be, it is blown off as the 'rantings' of the 'far left'. That fact contributes greatly to my frustration on these issues.
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