Much Ado About Nothing -- The 9/11 "Investigation"
One should try and stay focused on certain basic facts amid the press-driven hullabaloo.
Every single individual, including Richard Clarke, has testified that no one could possibly have predicted 9/11. The reason for this is that the millions of bits of information held by the FBI and CIA were not collected in one single database. In fact, the FBI, believe it or not, had no computer system at all until recently. The upshot, then, is that there were no glaring mistakes by anyone, so we should be moving forward to correct the aggregate weaknesses that might have revealed something helpful.
Even though neither Clinton nor Bush are held to have criminally blundered, many ask why the former did nothing in eight years, and why Bush chose to go after Saddam?
The Clinton administration was not fond of the military and had a weak DOD which presented neither enthusiasm nor good options. Nevertheless, the administration was aware of the threats, but had few specific opportunities to act on a terrorist outfit holed up in a primitive wilderness area surrounded by Muslim countries unexcited about the prospect of the US involving them in any way in such a wild goose chase. Despite the protestations of this committee, one can imagine the difficulties to be faced at home and abroad had a president went off on such a venture. Recall the 'bombing the aspirin factory' hubbub. And then of course there was Monica...
As for Bush, he was in office 7-1/2 months on 9/11. It would be difficult to fault his reaction to that event with a straight face. He went straight to Afghanistan to hunt down the perps. The problem with him, according to critics, is that he was so obsessed with Iraq before and after. It seems fairly clear why this was. Saddam had a history of killing hundreds of thousands of people with WMD, had shown aggression against other countries, had shown some nefarious contact with terrorist Al Qaeda, paid handsome sums of money to homicide bombers in Israel, had made fools out of the UN and their resolutions for years, had attempted an assassination on a US president, and the majority of US citizens thought we should have finished him off in the early '90s. And, of all the state sponsors of terrorism, it was do-able.
One final thought. I trust the people screaming about preemptive strikes are not the same souls who are now so outraged that we took no such strikes before 9/11.
And on that subject, it's an unfortunate word to have been embraced, preemptive. We live in a new world with new realities and would be derelict to sit and wait for a first strike. Any informed person understands that.
So sit back and enjoy the show. That's all it is.
The Pimpernel
