{"id":1441,"date":"2004-03-22T11:17:25","date_gmt":"2004-03-22T16:17:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/1441.html"},"modified":"2004-03-22T11:17:25","modified_gmt":"2004-03-22T16:17:25","slug":"ashcroft-resisted-counterterrorismm-efforts-immediately-after-911","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/ashcroft-resisted-counterterrorismm-efforts-immediately-after-911\/","title":{"rendered":"Ashcroft resisted counterterrorismm efforts immediately after 9\/11"},"content":{"rendered":"

Let me see if I get this straight.<\/p>\n

In 1995, John Kerry recommended cutting $1.5 billion<\/a> from the intelligence budget over a five-year period. The cut equaled about 1 percent of the overall intelligence budget for those years and targeted money the National Reconnaissance Office received but didn’t spend.<\/p>\n

Despite the fact that congressional Republicans approved a $3.8 billion cut from the same budget, Bush and his lackeys now insist that Kerry’s proposal — which they argue would have “gutted” our intelligence capabilities — disqualifies him for the presidency. Got it.<\/p>\n

Flash forward six years, to mid-September 2001, and the priorities of Attorney General John Ashcroft<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In the early days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the Bush White House cut by nearly two-thirds an emergency request for counterterrorism funds by the FBI, an internal administration budget document shows.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

The document, dated Oct. 12, 2001, shows that the FBI requested $1.5 billion in additional funds to enhance its counterterrorism efforts with the creation of 2,024 positions. But the White House Office of Management and Budget cut that request to $531 million. Attorney General John D. Ashcroft, working within the White House limits, cut the FBI’s request for items such as computer networking and foreign language intercepts by half, cut a cyber-security request by three quarters and eliminated entirely a request for “collaborative capabilities.”<\/p>\n

The document was one of several administration papers obtained and given to The Washington Post by the Center for American Progress, a liberal group run by former Clinton chief of staff John D. Podesta. The papers show that Ashcroft ranked counterterrorism efforts as a lower priority than his predecessor did, and that he resisted FBI requests for more counterterrorism funding before and immediately after the attacks.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Kerry recommended a 1% cut in a budget for unspent money in 1995; Ashcroft rejected counterterrorism efforts immediately after the terrorist attacks of 9\/11<\/i>. The GOP believes Kerry is unfit for office, but thinks Ashcroft is doing a great job.<\/p>\n

I wonder if the Republicans ever get tired of being so wrong, so often.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Let me see if I get this straight. In 1995, John Kerry recommended cutting $1.5 billion from the intelligence budget over a five-year period. The cut equaled about 1 percent of the overall intelligence budget for those years and targeted money the National Reconnaissance Office received but didn’t spend. Despite the fact that congressional Republicans […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1441"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1441\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}