"We Predicted It"

[mwb970]

by Jake Tapper
Salon, September 12, 2001

They went to great pains not to sound as though they were telling the president "We told you so." But on Wednesday, two former senators, the bipartisan co-chairs of a Defense Department-chartered commission on national security, spoke with something between frustration and regret about how White House officials failed to embrace any of the recommendations to prevent acts of domestic terrorism delivered earlier this year.

Bush administration officials told former Sens. Gary Hart, D-Colo., and Warren Rudman, R-N.H., that they preferred instead to put aside the recommendations issued in the January report by the U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century. Instead, the White House announced in May that it would have Vice President Dick Cheney study the potential problem of domestic terrorism -- which the bipartisan group had already spent two and a half years studying -- while assigning responsibility for dealing with the issue to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, headed by former Bush campaign manager Joe Allbaugh.

The Hart-Rudman Commission had specifically recommended that the issue of terrorism was such a threat it needed far more than FEMA's attention.

Before the White House decided to go in its own direction, Congress seemed to be taking the commission's suggestions seriously, according to Hart and Rudman. "Frankly, the White House shut it down," Hart says. "The president said 'Please wait, we're going to turn this over to the vice president. We believe FEMA is competent to coordinate this effort.' And so Congress moved on to other things, like tax cuts and the issue of the day."

more at:
http://archive.salon.com/politics/feature/2001/09/12/bush/index.html

[Atman]

1. We need a compendium of these stories

There are SO MANY of them from back in 2001, and BushCo's revisionist history is trying to obliterate the facts. We should have one place where all these stories are, so when the next republican shill tries to blame Clinton, we can point 'em to all these stories showing how full of shit they are.

[skids]

5. Build one here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=358

[cspanlovr]

2. They put Cheney in charge of terrorism. What more needs to be said.

[Phredicles]

3. Yes, recommended: we need to keep pulling this stuff back out of the

memory hole.

[ms liberty]

4. Great find - K&R n/t