Wallace has a post regarding the 9/11 Commission which matches my sentiments quite well. Last month, prior to open testimony, I wrote a post about how difficult it is for intel folks to piece together bits of unrelated data to derive some sort of educated guess. If you don’t want to wade through it, the short version is “Damned Difficult.” Once an event has occurred, it is quite simple to look back and see how those pieces fell together.
During the Clinton Administration, the official policy was to treat terrorists as criminals. If they committed a crime, we would do everthing we could to track them down and bring them to trial. With that as the standard, it makes complete sense for Clinton to not have taken custody of bin Laden when he had the chance. In retrospect, it was a deadly decision. But I also wonder whether complaints about this failure are hindsight analyses.
When the Bush Administration took over, GW decided to treat terrorism as a war. I’m sure Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, and Powell stood tall and accepted the new philosophy. However, there is a bureaucracy in Washington with a tremendous amount of inertia. Much of that inertia is ideologically based, some of it very practical. But some of it is based in the knowledge that the new Administration wanting to change things may only be around for four years, and then things will change back again. Why bother. Think Richard Clarke. George Tenet.
The Commission members are busy posing, building some contacts for future “consulting” jobs, and enjoying the limelight. Even Bob Kerrey, whom I respected prior to this, have fallen prey to the partisanship bug. Everyone wants to find someone to blame.
Guess what, guys. Osama bin Laden is to blame. The only way our government failed is by allowing easy access to visas for 19 men who probably never should have been in this country in the first place. Sounds like Colin Powell needs to fire a few people.
The partisan finger pointing is really getting old. I’m with you, the terrorists are to blame.
Now let’s get on with the war to keep them from getting us again.
Comment by Larry — April 10, 2004 @ 6:23 pm