It's in the books; the report is out: the bi-partisan commission on 9/11 has finished its job. But is it a good one? No one gets indicted - "mistakes were made" by everyone - it's institutionaal CYA ascendent, Or can someone convincingly explain why the enormous problems unveiled are met by no commensurate recommendations? Instead, we get a bureaucratic re-arranging of the chairs on the deck of the titanic. The report matters because we need to know "what went wrong" before we can get things right for the future! The choice of Bush's aggressive anticipatory threat anti-terror policy versus a Clintonian law enforcement one is THE choice in the presidential campaign - and largely explains why the nation's divisions are so damn sharp. The report largely blames Congress. Presidents get only glancing attention - yet failure of "leadership" is also singled out. If so, whose? How? Clearly if presidential leadership failed, then both current and recent presidents deserve blame - but one only had eight months compared to eight years! Should this report be trusted? There are many reasons not to. Clinton Justice Department Jamie Gorelick proved untrustworthy - failing to disclose her conflicts of interest; Ben Veniste was a partisan hack and proved himself a grandstanding buffoon; the panel was also reportedly blind-sided by counter-terrorism chief Richard Clarke: he said one thing, under oath to Congress - then contradicted himself to indict Bush, especially over Iraq, in his commission testimony. Can he be trusted? Worst of all, Clinton and NSC chief Sandy Burgler - under investigation for stealing Millenium Bombing plot documents ranked higher than our nuclear secrets - proved themselves coordinated liars. How do we know? According to the commission's report: "Clinton recalled saying to Bush, 'I think you will find that by far your biggest threat is bin Laden and the al Qaeda' . . . Bush told the commission he felt sure President Clinton had mentioned terrorism, but did not remember much being said about al Qaeda. Bush recalled that Clinton had emphasized other issues, such as North Korea and the Israeli-Palestinian peace process." The NSC advisors Rice and Burgler also clashed: "In early January [2001]," the report says, "Berger met with Rice. He says he told her the Bush administration would spend more time on terrorism in general and al Qaeda in particular than on anything else. Rice's recollection was that Berger told her she would be surprised at how much more time she was going to spend on terrorism than she expected, but that the bulk of their conversation dealt with the faltering Middle East peace process and North Korea." As John Podhoretz asks, "Two people are lying here, and two people are telling the truth. The question is, how can we tell the liars from the truth-tellers?" http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/27706.htm If you think "Bush Lied," then nothing will convince you otherwise. But three pieces of evidence bear on your assessment. First, Clinton intimate Dick Morris says in 1997 that that president's reputation will rest on three things: welfare reform, deficit reduction, and terrorism. Clinton dropped the ball on the last one, he said on Fox News this week. Second, Clarke's claim for credit in busting up the New Year's LAX Millenium bomb plot withered under the facts: customs agent Diana Deane says there was no communique from Washington, D.C. to her border post. Agents actually thought they just had a drug smuggler until inspection of the car revealed clock parts - after an agent had unwittingly shaken a nitroglycerin bottle. Third, the section of the report that deals with the American response to the October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen includes this conflict between Berger and former CIA director George Tenet: "Berger recalled that the intelligence agencies had strong suspicions, but had reached 'no conclusion by the time we left office that it was al Qaeda.' . . . Tenet told us he was surprised to hear that the White House was awaiting a conclusion from him on responsibility for the Cole attack before taking action against al Qaeda. He did not recall Berger or anyone else telling him that they were waiting for the magic words from the CIA or the FBI." Thus, two independent accounts undermine Clinton/Burgler's claim that terrorism was the highest priority, and a third one by implication. If the NSC advisor's claim had merit, certainly their own CIA chief ought to reflect that perception! But it doesn't. Finally, Podhoretz (aain, July 23, 2004) shows why you must indict the report's failure to judge: "I think there's a reason why an honest liberal Bush-hater could conclude that Clinton and Berger are lying. All they need do is apply Occam's razor (the principle that the simplest explanation is usually the correct one), and seek the most obvious answer to any question. "We know that at the time they were supposedly telling their replacements that terrorism was the world's No. 1 problem, Clinton and Berger were making a last-ditch effort to save the deal worked out at Camp David between the Israelis and the Palestinians. "We know what was preoccupying them right then and there. It wasn't terrorism. It wasn't al Qaeda. It was the Middle East peace process. "That jibes with what Bush and Rice told the 9/11 commissioners. It doesn't jibe with what Clinton and Berger told the commissioners." Therefore Bush and Burgler are lying, Bush and Rice are telling the truth. Why does this matter? It shows how Democrats will sacrifice national security for power (and Burlger was a Kerry foreign policy advisor until DOJ investigation surfaced); it shows why they cannot be trusted to lead the War on Terror: their "Law Enforcement" approach failed! Until they can come up with something better, I can't trust them - and even then I'll suspect these CYA'ing scumbags of lying! --Orson ex-lifelong Democrat, October, 1996.
