Why Bush deserves his share of the 9/11 blame.

[madmax]

Excellent article. These blurbs are from about the middle to the end. Read entire article at link below:

Softer on Terrorism?
Why Bush deserves his share of the 9/11 blame.
By Aaron Marr Page
Web Exclusive: 1.23.02

"In reality, eight months does not amount to a success story for the formulation of Bush's anti-bin Laden policy. Rather, it's a catastrophe. The latest Post story reports that when Clinton's national security adviser Sandy Berger sat down with his successor Condoleezza Rice during the transition period, he told her she was "going to spend more time during your four years on terrorism generally and Al Qaeda specifically than any other issue." In other words, this is a priority. But the Post also relates the story of Army Lt. Gen. Donald Kerrick, a top National Security Council staffer who stayed with Bush through May:

He noticed a difference on terrorism. Clinton's Cabinet advisers, burning with the urgency of their losses to bin Laden in the African embassy bombings in 1998 and the Cole attack in 2000, had met "nearly weekly" to direct the fight, Kerrick said. Among Bush's first-line advisers, "candidly speaking, I didn't detect" that kind of focus, he said.
If Bush's advisers hadn't been so instinctively dismissive of all things Clinton, they might have had a policy within a month or two of Bush's inauguration, maximum.

Yet certain basic factors of Bush's foreign policy in the spring and summer of 2001 suggest that he was fundamentally lost to the Al Qaeda threat. The story of Bush's sacrifice of foreign policy before the shrine of missile defense has already been told, but we should remember that one area of that sacrifice was the Islamic fundamentalist threat. Bush's first budget increased counterterrorism funding modestly -- to $13.6 billion from $12 billion. When concerned House members tried to make up for this by shifting $600 million away from missile defense funds, according to the latest Post account, none other than Donald Rumsfeld demanded that Bush threaten a veto.

The only Middle East issue that the Bush administration apparently gave a damn about was Saddam Hussein. Throughout the spring the papers were full of reports of Colin Powell's efforts to tinker with Iraq "smart sanctions"; of Paul Wolfowitz's pining for a full-scale invasion; of a "Shultz/Weinberger" gulf opening between Powell and Rumsfeld on the issue. Washington Post columnist Jim Hoagland started an April column thus: "President Bush is said to have empowered three administration working groups to think hard and devise one more new-and-improved U.S. policy on Iraq. Have no doubt: This means war." It's no secret why Iraq loomed so large: Saddam's continued existence was a stain on Bush's father's proudest presidential moment, the Gulf War. Dick Cheney, during the campaign, used to stop and take a deep breath before explaining his unique, impassioned antipathy for the enduring despot.

EDITED BY ADMIN: COPYRIGHT

http://www.prospect.org/webfeatures/2002/01/page-a-01-23.html

[Skittles]

1. let's see

what jagguy's response to this is.

[wellstone_democrat]

2. you'll wait forever

he won't touch this unless it is to attack the source of the article rather than its substance.

And, it certainly isn't secret info or interpretation of vaguely reported issues. I remember reading Hoagland back then and recalled his remarks when we heard all that Hamlet-like "I haven't decided about war with Iraq yet..." last winter.

[newyawker99]

3. madmax

Per DU copyright rules
please post only 4
paragraphs from the
news source.

Thank you.


NYer99
DU Moderator

[madmax]

4. Sorry - my mistake

[Octafish]

5. Must-Read article. Thank you, madmax!

Road-roadents interested in knowing how the inhabitant of the wasteland that is the mind of the GOP operates regarding 9-11 should read this article. Those who want to know more about the truth regarding 9-11 want to read this article.

Bonus: The real Andrew Sullivan shines through loud and clear.

EDITed to add this excerpt from the article:

...Bush abandoned Clinton's high-alert submarine operations, which, between January and September 2001, might have done the job. He fought against international anti-money laundering accords that would have helped track down Al Qaeda financial assets; he abandoned a CIA-trained Uzbek insurgency force; and like Clinton, he abandoned the Northern Alliance leader Ahmed Shah Massoud.