Richard Clarke, among others, has made it clear that Bush was negligent before 9/11 and careless after 9/11. But what about on 9/11?
I realize in some circles this topic is more than taboo; it’s practically heresy. But a report in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal offered a detailed critique about a day that “remains shrouded in confusion and misunderstanding.” In fact, the WSJ article highlights a series of competing and contradictory claims that have come from the White House about how the crisis was handled.
And if you wanted to know why the White House has resisted cooperating with the independent 9/11 commission — indeed, resisted its very existence — this article helps explain some of the questions Bush and others would prefer not to answer.
[D]espite intense attention paid to Sept. 11, public understanding of that day — how government officials responded, what went smoothly and what didn’t — remains shrouded in confusion and misunderstanding. The independent commission appointed to study the terror strikes has said it considers piecing together a minute-by-minute picture of that day’s events crucial to its task of deciding whether the country needs to take further steps to prepare for potential future crises.
Scores of interviews with those who played key roles that day or directly witnessed events suggest that some official accounts of Sept. 11 are incorrect, incomplete or in dispute. Among other things, the commission is examining such questions as how long Mr. Bush remained in a Florida classroom just after the World Trade Center strikes, whether there really was a threat to Air Force One that day, how effectively American fighter jets reacted to the attacks, and who activated the national-emergency-response plan.
To be sure, some of the inconsistencies seem less significant than others. For example, Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, acting head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on 9/11, was responsible for raising the military’s alert status to Defcon III, according to several administration officials. Months later, however, Bush said raising the alert status was one of the “first acts” he took.
White House Communications Director Dan Bartlett acknowledged that Bush’s account wasn’t exactly true, saying the president provided a “description that the public could understand” and spoke in “broad strokes.” In other words, Bush was fibbing, but just for effect. Fine.
Then there’s Bush’s account of how he learned of the attacks while visiting an elementary school in Florida, which is also obviously wrong.
At the Dec. 4, 2001, town-hall meeting in Orlando, Mr. Bush said, “I was sitting outside the classroom, waiting to go in, and I saw an airplane hit the tower — the TV was obviously on. And I used to fly myself, and I said, ‘Well, there’s one terrible pilot.'” Several weeks later, he said essentially the same thing at another public event in Ontario, Calif.
That’s a cute story, which may have been offered to remind everyone of his training as a pilot, but the truth is the TV in the room wasn’t even plugged in.
But there are far more serious questions about competing versions of what happened with Bush and his staff that day.
Just after 9 a.m., White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card strode into the classroom, leaned down and whispered in the president’s ear, “A second plane hit the second tower. America is under attack,” Mr. Card has recounted.
[…]
In a CNBC television interview almost a year later, Mr. Card said that after he alerted Mr. Bush, “I pulled away from the president, and not that many seconds later, the president excused himself from the classroom, and we gathered in the holding room and talked about the situation.”
I guess that depends on how you define “seconds.” Bush, after learning that the country is “under attack,” actually stayed and listened to the children read for five minutes, and then stayed at least another two minutes to chat with the students before leaving. It’s not unreasonable to wonder why this happened.
Perhaps the strangest inconsistency deals with the alleged threat against Air Force One, which was used at the time to explain why Bush stayed away from Washington for almost 12 hours after the attack. The claim was repeated at the time and in subsequent weeks by Dick Cheney and then-spokesman Ari Fleischer. The White House later admitted that there was no actual threat. Why was the claim used repeatedly if it had no basis in fact?
I don’t want to relay the entire article here, but it’s definitely worth checking out. There are several other inconsistencies described and competing accounts from multiple White House officials about a series of key questions.
The point, in case it isn’t clear, is not to play “gotcha” with the president and his staff. As the WSJ article notes, accurately, the day was “chaotic” and it’s only fair to expect that some of the accounts will “differ in hindsight.” The questions that the WSJ outlined and that the 9/11 commission will be asking are not about setting partisan traps; it’s about determining exactly what happened so as to help prepare for and prevent future crises.
That said, if some of the accounts have been fabricated for political purposes — the White House trying to make itself look better by twisting events into anecdotes that show Bush in a more positive light — the public has a right to know if the administration is willing to exploit the tragedy with half-truths and imaginary notions of heroism.