OK, a quick fill-in-the-blank quiz. On September 10, 2001, about 18 hours before terrorists used airplanes as missiles to kill 3,000 Americans, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld launched a sweeping new Pentagon initiative. He called it a “War on _________.”
Was it:
a) Terrorism
b) Al Queda and Osama bin Laden
c) The Ballistic Missile Threat
d) France
e) Bureaucracy
If you said, “Bureaucracy,” you’re not only right, you also understand that the Bush administration simply did not focus its energy or resources on the burgeoning terrorist threat against the United States during its first nine months in office. They were, collectively, asleep at the wheel.
It obviously wasn’t just Rumsfeld. The Washington Post, in a great front-page article, explained today that Condoleezza Rice was scheduled to deliver a speech on Sept. 11, 2001 about the most serious international threats to the U.S. The speech, however, did not talk about terrorism.
On Sept. 11, 2001, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice was scheduled to outline a Bush administration policy that would address “the threats and problems of today and the day after, not the world of yesterday” — but the focus was largely on missile defense, not terrorism from Islamic radicals.
The speech provides telling insight into the administration’s thinking on the very day that the United States suffered the most devastating attack since the 1941 bombing of Pearl Harbor. The address was designed to promote missile defense as the cornerstone of a new national security strategy, and contained no mention of al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden or Islamic extremist groups, according to former U.S. officials who have seen the text.
In fact, Rice was scheduled to dismiss Clinton-era concerns about international terrorism as missing what she saw as a more pressing concern.
The text also implicitly challenged the Clinton administration’s policy, saying it did not do enough about the real threat — long-range missiles.
“We need to worry about the suitcase bomb, the car bomb and the vial of sarin released in the subway,” according to excerpts of the speech provided to The Washington Post. “[But] why put deadbolt locks on your doors and stock up on cans of mace and then decide to leave your windows open?”
The text of Rice’s Sept. 11 speech, which was never delivered, broadly reflects Bush administration foreign policy pronouncements during the eight months leading to the attacks, according to a review of speeches, news conferences and media appearances. Although the administration did address terrorism, it devoted far more attention to pushing missile defense, a controversial idea both at home and abroad, the review shows.
Al Qaeda and Islamic terrorism rated lower on the list of priorities, as outlined by officials in their own public statements on policy.
President Bush wasn’t exactly blazing an anti-terrorism trail, either. Newsday columnist Marie Cocco noted this week that we should also take note of what Bush had to say — and didn’t say.
Here is what [Bush’s] lips said publicly about al-Qaida between Jan. 1, 2001, just before Bush was sworn in as president, and Sept. 10, 2001: Nothing.
There were zero references to al-Qaida during these months. That’s according to Federal News Service, which transcribes every presidential utterance – speeches, news conferences, impromptu musings at photo ops, off-the-cuff remarks made striding toward a helicopter, official comments with foreign dignitaries. The search was conducted including the phrase “al Q” – to capture every possible spelling or translation for al-Qaida. Still nothing.
Of course, the president did mention terrorism, terrorists and counterterrorism 24 times before 9/11. But eight of these comments referred to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Another eight involved a range of terrorist threats, including ethnic terrorism in Macedonia and Basque separatists in Spain.
In the remaining eight references to terrorism, the new president offered his idea for how to combat it: the Reagan-era missile-defense system formerly known as Star Wars.
This may sound odd coming from me, but I’m not necessarily prepared to categorically condemn the administration for its negligent approach. What troubles me far more is the rhetoric we’ve been hearing of late, especially in response to Richard Clarke, which insists that the White House took the terrorist threat seriously and that counterterrorism was a primary concern of the administration.
It’s transparently false. If they admitted that 9/11 was a “wake-up call,” they’d be widely forgiven. Instead, White House officials feel it’s necessary to lie and present themselves as in-the-know anti-terrorism warriors all along. And that’s far harder to forgive.