There Was Fishing But No Shaking of the Trees

It's hard to know what to make of the Able Danger story, in which (now) two sources claim they ID'd Mo Atta in early 2000, but were forbidden by Pentagon lawyers from sharing the info with the FBI. (Conservatives have incorrectly tried to tie this to the so-called "wall" supposedly erected by 9/11 Commission member and former Clinton Justice Department official Jamie Gorelick, but, as anyone with the ability to digest simple facts should know, that alleged "wall" was between the Justice Department and the FBI, not the Pentagon. But on the right, why deal with the truth when you can just blame Clinton?)

And blame Clinton conservatives have, claiming that the Able Danger story is another reason to pin 9/11 on Clinton. But there I think is where their analysis is (not surprisingly) faulty, as this news just once again proves how incredibly negligent Bush and Rice were in August 2001. You see, Bush received his infamous PDB titled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike Inside United States" on August 6, 2001. And then went fishing. Did NOTHING.

Now, according to Richard Clarke, when the Clinton Administration received a high level of chatter about the possibility of a terrorist attack, it handled the matter a little bit different:

By June 2001, there still hadn't been a Cabinet-level meeting on terrorism,
even though U.S. intelligence was picking up an unprecedented level of ominous
chatter.

The CIA director warned the White House, Clarke points out. "George Tenet
was saying to the White House, saying to the president - because he briefed him
every morning - a major al Qaeda attack is going to happen against the United
States somewhere in the world in the weeks and months ahead. He said that in
June, July, August."

Clarke says the last time the CIA had picked up a similar level of chatter
was in December, 1999, when Clarke was the terrorism czar in the Clinton White
House. Clarke says Mr. Clinton ordered his Cabinet to go to battle stations--
meaning, they went on high alert, holding meetings nearly every day.

That, Clarke says, helped thwart a major attack on Los Angeles
International Airport, when an al Qaeda operative was stopped at the border with
Canada, driving a car full of explosives.

Clarke harshly criticizes President Bush for not going to battle stations
when the CIA warned him of a comparable threat in the months before Sept. 11:
"He never thought it was important enough for him to hold a meeting on the
subject, or for him to order his National Security Adviser to hold a
Cabinet-level meeting on the subject."

Basically, Clarke says that, after getting intelligence reports about the possible terrorist threat, Clinton held daily meetings, forcing his Cabinet to go make their respective agencies each night and "shake the trees" in order to find out if ANYTHING was out there, to report back at the next day's meeting. Bush, tragically, never did that. If he had, then perhaps this Able Danger information or the other information about the terrorists going to flight school might have been pieced together somehow, and a major attack might have been avoided, just like Clinton had thwarted the LAX attack.

But we will never know, because Bush and Rice did nothing. Such horrific negligence.
- posted by Joshua @ 12:07 PM