The Competency Myth

Some people, like Dick Cheney, will continue to be viewed by the mainstream press as "extremely competent," no matter how much they screw up or how wrong they are repeatedly on important decisions. (For Cheney, these things include his disastrous decisions as CEO of Halliburton that resulted in the company taking on millions of dollars in absestos liability as part of an acquisition and of course his incredible miscalculations in Iraq.)

Condi Rice apparently also shares this characterization. No matter how negligent she was as NSA or how badly she repeatedly got things wrong, the press constantly ignored her many missteps and created a myth of competency around her. Democrats who opposed her for Secretary of State were deemed to be hopelessly out of touch. Or were they?

Anyone who has read the 9/11 Commission report has seen how incredibly negligent Rice was in the pre-Sept. 11 days, as Richard Clarke sends her urgent e-mail after e-mail and memo after memo, pleading with her to do SOMETHING about the pending Al Qaeda threat, to no avail.

Now some documents have been released to the public, including the memo that Clarke sent to Rice on January 25, 2001, five days into the new Administration. In that memo, Clarke writes that "we urgently need ... a Principals level review on the Al Qida network." (emphasis in original). Rice refused, told him not to request any more Principals meetings, and told him to work through the deputies. The Principals meeting Clarke wanted in January 2001 did not occur until... September 4, 2001.

Clarke also writes:

"As we noted in our briefings for you, Al Qida is not some narrow, little
terrorist issue that needs to be included in broader regional policy.
Rather, several of our regional policies need to address centrally the
transnational challenge to the US and our interests posed by the Al Qida
network. By proceeding with separate policy reviews on Central Asia, the
GCC, North Africa, etc, we would deal inadequately with the need for a
comprehensive, multi-regional policy on Al Qida."

I'm struck, first of all, with the reference to prior briefings given to Rice on the subject, and the fact that Clarke was right on concerning Al Qaeda and Rice just simply did not recognize the danger posed to the US. Finally, it is becoming clearer and clearer that Rice lied to the 9/11 Commission as well. First of all, on March 22, 2004, Rice wrote an Op-Ed column (notably not under oath, as she did not testify publicly until April 7) stating this:

No al Qaeda plan was turned over to the new administration.

Well, if you look at the end of Clarke's January 25, 2001 memo, you'll see that it has two attachments: Tab A is a "December 2000 Paper: Strategy for Eliminating the Threat from the Jihadist Networks of Al Qida: Status and Prospects" and Tab B is a "September 1998 Paper: Pol-Mil Plan for Al Qida."

The December 2000 Paper has also been released to the public and guess what? It sure looks like an al Qaeda plan. Judge for yourself.

Dr. Rice and the truth are mutually exclusive. But we may be safer now with her in the State Department than as NSA. But don't be fooled into believing her myth of competency. Richard Clarke was trying to save us all, and she couldn't be bothered to listen.
- posted by Joshua @ 10:09 AM