Richard C. Clarke, who was an intelligence coordinator under Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton was a government official with national-security-related duties when 9/11 happened. He was at the White House on 9/11 and presumably suffered all the same traumas that Ms. Rice and Mr. Cheney had suffered. Mr. Clarke also had far more national-security experience than many of the then-new Bush Administration officials.
And yet, Mr. Clarke is not convinced that the 9/11-Trauma Defense holds water:
"Careful analysis could have replaced the impulse to break all the rules, even more so because the Sept. 11 attacks, though horrifying, should not have surprised senior officials. Cheney's admission that 9/11 caused him to reassess the threats to the nation only underscores how, for months, top officials had ignored warnings from the CIA and the NSC staff that urgent action was needed to preempt a major al-Qaeda attack.
"Thus, when Bush's inner circle first really came to grips with the threat of terrorism, they did so in a state of shock -- a bad state in which to develop a coherent response. Fearful of new attacks, they authorized the most extreme measures available, without assessing whether they were really a good idea.
I believe this zeal stemmed in part from concerns about the 2004 presidential election. Many in the White House feared that their inaction prior to the attacks would be publicly detailed before the next vote -- which is why they resisted the 9/11 commission -- and that a second attack would eliminate any chance of a second Bush term. So they decided to leave no doubt that they had done everything imaginable.
"The first response they discussed was invading Iraq. While the Pentagon was still burning, Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld was in the White House suggesting an attack against Baghdad. Somehow the administration's leaders could not believe that al-Qaeda could have mounted such a devastating operation, so Iraqi involvement became the convenient explanation. Despite being told repeatedly that Iraq was not involved in 9/11, some, like Cheney, could not abandon the idea.
"Charles Duelfer of the CIA's Iraq Survey Group recently revealed in his book, "Hide and Seek: The Search for Truth in Iraq," that high-level U.S. officials urged him to consider waterboarding specific Iraqi prisoners of war so that they could provide evidence of an Iraqi role in the terrorist attacks -- a request Duelfer refused. (A recent report indicates that the suggestion came from the vice president's office.)
"Nevertheless, the lack of evidence did not deter the administration from eventually invading Iraq -- a move many senior Bush officials had wanted to make before 9/11." (Washington Post)
The big question is this: Why -- even before 9/11 -- were senior Bush officials so hell-bent on invading a nation that had not attacked our nation?
Another big question: is it mere coincidence that so many individuals, through business entities, have made so much money off the Iraq war (more accurately, that they redistributed so much of the taxpayers' wealth to themselves)?
I cannot help thinking of President Eisenhower's 1961 farewell address, during which he deliberately warned the American people about potential danger of the "military industrial complex."
Though Mr. Clarke does not answer those questions, I urge you to read the rest of his op-ed. Memeorandum has commentary.
Other Buck Naked Politics Posts:
* Government Contractors: Driving up War's Costs?
* Contractors Offering Bribes to Army Personnel?
* Yet Another Defense Contractor Bilks Taxpayers
* How KBR Got $1 Billion in "Non-Credible" Costs
* Inspector General Blocked Probe of Contractor Waste & Fraud?
* Billions over Baghdad: Poor Accounting Allowed Waste & Fraud
* Audit Red-Flags Contractor in Iraq
Comments