Here I am in a Psychopathic World/Trying to Avoid Disaster

In Sunday's New York Times, Richard Clarke, Bill Clinton's counter-terrorism tsar, argued that we all shouldn't focus so much on which administration is to blame for failing to prevent 9/11 (both failed because it happened)...but instead we must figure out where to go from here in protecting the still-vulnerable U.S. from future attacks -- without shredding the Constitution. Since he's the only government official ever to apologize to the American people for failing to prevent 9/11 (during the same 9/11 Commission hearings that Condi Rice was forced to disclose the title of the August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Brief (PDB) from the CIA -- Bin Laden Determined to Strike U.S. -- and dismiss it as "historical information"), I'm willing to give some thought to his proposal.

Then again, it's becoming more and more evident that Condi and the Bush administration had plenty of warning that something wicked was this way coming during their first, pre-9/11 8 months in the White House. (And this is playing the blame game, folks -- the Bushies have cast the blame on everyone else -- especially Clinton -- for 9/11, tarred and feathered the Democrats as weak-kneed, pee-in-your-pants sissies when it comes to protecting the nation from terrorists, and used 9/11 to prey on the fears of the American public and manipulate us for their own political ends.)

Yeah, I loved that Clinton got all in Chris Wallace's face on GOP/Fox "News" and forcefully reminded everyone that at least he tried to kill bin Laden and keep al-Qaeda in check (and did indeed warn the Bush administration that they were a grave threat and handed them a plan for combating al Qaeda and the man to lead the effort: Richard Clarke):

"Clinton said he came "closer to killing" Osama bin Laden in a 1998 missile strike on terrorist training camps in Afghanistan than anybody has since.

"I didn't get him," Clinton said. "But at least I tried. That's the difference in me and some, including all the right-wingers who are attacking me now. They ridiculed me for trying. They had eight months to try. They did not try. I tried.

"So I tried and failed. When I failed, I left a comprehensive anti-terror strategy and the best guy in the country, Dick Clarke, who got demoted."

The most damning revelation that emerged from all this was that in December 2000, Clinton finally learned from the FBI and CIA that the party responsible for the suicide-bomb attack on the USS Cole, which killed 17 American sailors and wounded another 39, was al Qaeda. Clinton, in his last month as President, decided that the US response (and all its policy implications) should be up to the new administration (contrast this with Bush, who plans to leave mopping up the Iraq mess for the next President):

"[9/11 Commission member] RICHARD BEN-VENISTE: Well, I think it's an important subject. The issue of the Cole is an important subject, and there has been a lot of politicization over this issue, why didn't President Clinton respond?

"Well, we set forth in the report the reasons, and that is because the CIA had not given the president the conclusion that al Qaeda was responsible. That did not occur until some point in December. It was reiterated in a briefing to the -- to the new president in January....

"[CNN Correspondent] WOLF BLITZER: Well, let me stop you for a second. If former President Clinton knew in December. . . .

"BEN-VENISTE: Right.

"BLITZER: . . . that the CIA and the FBI had, in his words, certified that al Qaeda was responsible, he was still president until January 20, 2001. He had a month, let's say, or at least a few weeks to respond.

"Why didn't he?

"BEN-VENISTE: Well, I think that was a question of whether a president who would be soon leaving office would initiate an attack against a foreign country, Afghanistan. And I think that was left up to the new administration. But strangely, in the transition there did not seem to be any great interest by the Bush administration, at least none that we found, in pursuing the question of plans which were being drawn up to attack in Afghanistan as a response to the Cole."

What did Condi and Dubya do with this vital bit of intel? Nada, zip, zilch. Focused on Star Wars/SDI missile defense. Finishing up Poppy's war in Iraq. Vacationing in Crawford and dismissing the CIA briefer who delivered the August 6, 2001 PDB "Bin Laden Determined to Strike US" that he'd "covered his ass" (quoted in Ron Suskind's "The One Percent Doctrine") and to git along, so he could get back to clearing brush.

According to 9-11 Commission member Richard Ben-Veniste, in an interview with CNN:

"One of the questions ... I specifically had, was why President Bush did not respond to the Cole attack. And what he told me was that he did not want to launch a cruise-missile attack against bin Laden for fear of missing him."

Yeah, remember that Clinton got a lot of crap from the Republicans when he fired a cruise missile at bin Laden and failed to hit the target. It's hard being the Decider, isn't it? Your plan might not succeed!

But Condi insisted that she and the Bush administration did all they could to fight al-Qaeda and prevent 9/11 (this from the National Security Advisor who said that no one could imagine terrorists flying airplanes into buildings and that Saddam would leave mushroom clouds in the wake of his imminent attack on the US).

Now we learn that former CIA Director George Tenent met with National Security Advisor Condi Rice to sound the alarm on a sure to be coming al Qaeda attack. According to the New York Times, "on July 10, 2001, Mr. Tenet and his counterterrorism deputy, J. Cofer Black, were so alarmed about an impending Al Qaeda attack that they demanded an emergency meeting at the White House with Ms. Rice and her National Security Council staff."

From an excerpt in the Washington Post quoting Bob Woodward's "State of Denial" tome:

"On July 10, 2001, two months before the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, then-CIA Director George J. Tenet met with his counterterrorism chief, J. Cofer Black, at CIA headquarters to review the latest on Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda terrorist organization. Black laid out the case, consisting of communications intercepts and other top-secret intelligence showing the increasing likelihood that al-Qaeda would soon attack the United States. It was a mass of fragments and dots that nonetheless made a compelling case, so compelling to Tenet that he decided he and Black should go to the White House immediately.

"Tenet called Condoleezza Rice, then national security adviser, from the car and said he needed to see her right away. . . .

"He and Black hoped to convey the depth of their anxiety and get Rice to kick-start the government into immediate action. . . .

"Tenet hoped his abrupt request for an immediate meeting would shake Rice. He and Black, a veteran covert operator, had two main points when they met with her. First, al-Qaeda was going to attack American interests, possibly in the United States itself. Black emphasized that this amounted to a strategic warning, meaning the problem was so serious that it required an overall plan and strategy. Second, this was a major foreign policy problem that needed to be addressed immediately. They needed to take action that moment -- covert, military, whatever -- to thwart bin Laden. . . .

"Tenet and Black felt they were not getting through to Rice. She was polite, but they felt the brush-off. President Bush had said he didn't want to swat at flies. . . .

"The July 10 meeting between Tenet, Black and Rice went unmentioned in the various reports of investigations into the Sept. 11 attacks, but it stood out in the minds of Tenet and Black as the starkest warning they had given the White House on bin Laden and al-Qaeda."

Condi's response to this devastating revelation? "'What I am quite certain of is that I would remember if I was told, as this account apparently says, that there was about to be an attack in the United States, and the idea that I would somehow have ignored that I find incomprehensible."

That's it? Essentially, a "I don't recall"/"they are lying" defense?

It's worth revisiting another bit of her dissembling, too, in light of all the other warnings that National Security Advisor Rice and others in the Bush administration must have been receiving from our intelligence agencies in the months running up to 9/11. From "What You Think You Know About September 11..But Don't," posted on Slate on September 10, 2003:

The misconception: No one could have predicted the Sept. 11 attacks. Since 9/11, President Bush and his team have repeatedly insisted that the attacks were inconceivable. David Corn chronicles these claims in his new book The Lies of George W. Bush: Mastering the Politics of Deception. In May 2002, for example, Condoleezza Rice said, "I don't think anyone could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center." Ari Fleischer echoed her, "Never did we imagine what would take place on Sept. 11 where people use those airplanes as missiles and weapons."

What's wrong with the story: In fact, there were tons of warnings of exactly this kind of attack. The recent congressional report on the 9/11 intelligence failures lists a dozen pre-9/11 indications that terrorists were plotting a suicide hijacking. For example, in 1994 Algerians hijacked an Air France airliner with the intention of crashing it into the Eiffel Tower. (They were tricked by French officials into landing in Marseilles to refuel, where they were overpowered.) In 1995, police in the Philippines uncovered an al-Qaida plot to fly a plane into CIA headquarters. (One of the plotters: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.) A year later, al-Qaida had the idea of flying a plane from outside the United States and crashing it into the White House. Two years later, al-Qaida planned to fly a plane from outside the United States and crash it into the World Trade Center. And so on.

Intelligence officials, who are endlessly juggling all kinds of different threats, didn't take the suicide-plane schemes seriously because they believed there were other, more imminent dangers. But no one can say they weren't warned."

I'd be a lot more forgiving -- and I think I'm speaking for a lot of people on the left -- if Condi, or Dubya, even Cheney (especially Cheney) had just gone on TV at some point after 9/11 and said "we had some warnings about this, and we should have seen it, and we completely blew it."

But they didn't -- and way too much has gone down since then...

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"How To Avoid Disaster" is by the Aussie punk/rock band, The Saints, from their "All Fool's Day" album.