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Able Danger my hind end... When Bush told Hart Rudman to take a hike.
As I write this post, the Republicans in their never ending quest to cover for the most inept and 'in over his head' president in our nation's history are trying to resurrect what pre 911 information may have been missed during the Clinton administration. This issue is being brought up by a book promoter, Sun Myung Moon vision promoter and political partisan hack by the name of Kurt Weldon. After years of training the cult to believe all our intel has been hampered by "liberal" concerns about info sharing, the "wall", they have the cult primed to bite any turd that comes floating by. Fact is the communication guidelines were begun under Reagan/Bush. Here, we'll let Media Matters explain some of that.
Let no one be confused, Weldon, who I saw on TV a couple hours after the WTC fell yapping that it was Clinton's fault, is trying to gain political points, sell a book and distract the cult's minds into ignoring the gross ineptness of Bush and Team Thug. Treason in the White House and a total lack of after invasion planning in Iraq are just a couple of the things Weldon and the right wish to see removed from the news.
We all know how Bush fought the 911 commission and we know how Bush refused to even testify under oath or appear before the commission without his pacifier, Cheney, present to hold his hand. Anyone who says that Bush cared that the 911 commission did a proper job is a liar. Between Bush's dodges and milquetoast Lee Hamilton as one of the heads, the commission never had a chance.
Unlike Bush's cult, which is not allowed to say they made any mistake, ever, it should be noted that Clinton has said despite his administration's many successes, they didn't do enough.
My post is to remind the finger pointers on the right of just how inept Bush was in those extremely critical months before 911. We know he received a memo, August 6, saying Bin Laden was "determined" to attack us and we know he didn't do anything about it. We know, even with all the warnings, he pee'd his pants, froze, when told our nation was under attack. But I think it is more important to look at that lack of action along with the string of poor decisions Bush made in the spring, prior to 911. The back up is below ...let's just remember a few things....
In January of 2001 Bush was handed the final section, Phase III, of the Hart Rudman report. The bipartisan two and half year study of terrorism gave Bush a detailed map, a detailed set of directions as to how make our nation safe. Hart Rudman's final report, with its recommendation that the nation create a Homeland Security Department, was given to our new president because HR knew it would take a lot of political capital to pass, political capital, something new presidents have. It would take a leader. With HR as a backdrop or template, congress proposed three bills in early 2001 to get the ball rolling on creating a Homeland Security Department. Bush rebuffed their efforts. Even Newt said, "The administration actually slowed down response to Hart-Rudman when momentum was building in the spring," Sadly, Bush used his "capital" to pass tax cuts for his fat cat friends.
Make no mistake, Bush told the congress and told the Hart Rudman report to take a hike. Ignoring the hard work and the accurate predictions of HR and Congress, in May 2001, Bush announced that Dick Cheney would put together a group and work on the problem terrorism and that he(Bush) would occasionally chair the group with Cheney. When announcing that Cheney would do this, Bush went so far as to say that the terrorist threat, though very real, was "not immediate". Lord only knows what idiot told him to add that to his statement but he did.(see below) That really doesn't matter because, as we all know, Cheney's group NEVER met.
Couple things about this, Bush's decision to wait for Cheney to find time for our nation's security, should have sent up a red flag to the country that Bush was not prepared to be president. Ignoring Hart Rudman's recommendation was the worst decision ever made by or for a President. How bad? It is likely to result in WW3 if it hasn't already.
Another point that I never hear mentioned is WHY Cheney's "group" never met, why didn't he have time for nation's security? It was because Cheney was busy paying off the Republican fat cats in the oil and energy industry. Remember Cheney's "secret" energy group? Yep, that was what had Dick busy, paying off the republican fat cats with tax breaks we see in the "energy" bill.
Not only did Bush NOT pay attention to Hart Rudman, in some cases he did the EXACT opposite of what HR recommended. Two things come to mind, one is that HR was emphatic that FEMA was not capable of handling the job of Homeland Security. There were proposal to use FEMA, but only after major changes and a huge increase in power. What did Bush do? Not only put his campaign manager and funeralgate figure, Joe Albaugh in charge of protecting us from terrorism, Bush cut FEMA's budget a by a couple hundred million. What vision.
Another major proposal of HR was for our nation to use the National Guard to help protect the homeland. Bush shot the wad on that potential security enhancement when he decided to play God in Iraq. Our National Guard is being worn down thanks to his inept planning and decision-making.
Bottom line is, yes there were things done wrong before 911, any jack ass can tell that. What is troubling is the lying, deception, and finger pointing the Republicans have used to cover for the cult's own culpability through lack of leadership.(Republicans controlled the Senate and the House in spring 2001) Fact is, Bush made the worst, most short sighted, ill timed decision ever when he told Hart Rudman to take a hike.
Hart said the people on the commission were careful not to yell, "We told you so!" Fact is, they did tell us so and though it should have been covered in the press at the time to push the story, it was the President's job to see its importance and act, lead, he didn't. Personally, I don't buy the BS that even if Bush had moved on the HR report that it might not have stopped 911. Ridge said seven months after 911 that our intel departments were sharing information better. This was the same amount of time between when Bush was handed HR and 911. Lord if Bush had only tried. We will never know for sure what might have been, but we do know Bush set our national security back two years before he finally agreed to support a Homeland Security Department.
Then to top it all off, over a year later, when Bush finally agreed to support a Homeland Security Department as HR proposed, Joe Allbaugh, whose experience as Bush campaign manager Bush felt qualified him to be the man in charge of protecting our nation from terrorism, praised Bush for "his bold and innovative proposal."
sheeesh...
below are some pertinent excerpts for your perusal....
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Here's an article originally in the Columbia Journalism Review by Harold Evans.
We were warned. Some of the best minds in the United States attempted to alert the nation that, without a new emphasis on homeland security and attention to terrorism, "Americans will likely die on American soil, possibly in large numbers" as the result of terrorist attacks. The first warning came in September 1999, when former Senators Gary Hart and Warren Rudman, co-chairs, used those words in the first of three documents from an entity called the United States Commission on National Security, created during a rare moment of agreement between President Clinton and House speaker Newt Gingrich.
Then, seven months before the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the commission re-emphasized its warning, this time with a detailed agenda for action to make America safer from terrorism. The report was scary but it was also constructive and authoritative. And it is fair to say that most Americans never heard of it until after the attacks. ...
Hearings were scheduled for the week of May 7. But the White House stymied the move. It did not want Congress out front on the issue, not least with a report originated by a Democratic president and an ousted Republican speaker. On May 5, the administration announced that, rather than adopting Hart-Rudman, it was forming its own committee headed by Vice President Dick Cheney, who was expected to report in October. "The administration actually slowed down response to Hart-Rudman when momentum was building in the spring," says Gingrich. ....
Senator Hart visited the White House in an effort to get the administration to move faster. He met National Security adviser Condoleezza Rice on September 6, just five days before the terrorist attacks. She would, she said, "pass on" his concerns. ...
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Commission warned Bush
But White House passed on recommendations by a bipartisan, Defense department-ordered commission on domestic terrorism.
Sept. 12, 2001 | WASHINGTON -- 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."
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A Strategy's Cautious Evolution
Before Sept. 11, the Bush Anti-Terror Effort Was Mostly Ambition
By Barton Gellman Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, January 20, 2002; Page A01
... Privately, as the strategy took form in spring and summer, the Bush team expressed disdain for the counterterrorist policies it had inherited from President Bill Clinton. Speaking of national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, a colleague said that "what she characterized as the Clinton administration approach was 'empty rhetoric that made us look feckless.'"
Yet a careful review of the Bush administration's early record on terrorism finds more continuity than change from the Clinton years, measured in actions taken and decisions made. Where the new team shifted direction, it did not always choose a more aggressive path:
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- At least twice, Bush conveyed the message to the Taliban that the United States would hold the regime responsible for an al Qaeda attack. But after concluding that bin Laden's group had carried out the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole – a conclusion stated without hedge in a Feb. 9 briefing for Vice President Cheney – the new administration did not choose to order armed forces into action.
...
- In his first budget, Bush spent $13.6 billion on counterterrorist programs across 40 departments and agencies. That compares with $12 billion in the previous fiscal year, according to the Office of Management and Budget. There were also somewhat higher gaps this year, however, between what military commanders said they needed to combat terrorists and what they got. When the Senate Armed Services Committee tried to fill those gaps with $600 million diverted from ballistic missile defense, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said he would recommend a veto. That threat came Sept. 9.
- On May 8, Bush announced a new Office of National Preparedness for terrorism at the Federal Emergency Management Agency. At the same time, he proposed to cut FEMA's budget by $200 million. Bush said that day that Cheney would direct a government-wide review on managing the consequences of a domestic attack, and "I will periodically chair a meeting of the National Security Council to review these efforts." Neither Cheney's review nor Bush's took place.
- Bush did not speak again publicly of the dangers of terrorism before Sept. 11, except to promote a missile shield that had been his top military priority from the start. At least three times he mentioned "terrorist threats that face us" to explain the need to discard the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.
- ... And until the summer, Treasury Secretary Paul H. O'Neill suspended U.S. participation in allied efforts to penetrate offshore banking havens, whose secrecy protects the cash flows of drug traffickers, tax evaders and terrorists.
At the nexus of law enforcement and intelligence, where the United States has concentrated its work against al Qaeda since 1998, a longtime senior participant said he observed no essential change after the White House passed to new occupants.
"Ninety-nine point-something percent of the work going on and the decisions being made would have continued to be made whether or not we had an election," the career officer said. "I have a real difficult time pointing to anything from January 20th to September 10th that can be said to be a Bush initiative, or something that wouldn't have happened anyway." ...
Army Lt. Gen. Donald Kerrick, who had come from top posts on the Joint Staff and the Defense Intelligence Agency to manage Clinton's National Security Council staff, remained at the NSC nearly four months after Bush took office.
He noticed a difference on terrorism. Clinton's Cabinet advisers, burning with the urgency of their losses to bin Laden in the African embassy bombings in 1998 and the Cole attack in 2000, had met "nearly weekly" to direct the fight, Kerrick said. Among Bush's first-line advisers, "candidly speaking, I didn't detect" that kind of focus, he said. "That's not being derogatory. It's just a fact. I didn't detect any activity but what Dick Clarke and the CSG were doing."
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Thornberry proposes HR1158
Testimony of Congressman Mac Thornberry
Joint Hearing Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security, Veterans Affairs, and International Relations Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee on Economic Development, Pubic Buildings, and Emergency Management April 24, 2001
...
Partly because we have begun a new century and a new millennium, partly because there is a new Administration, and partly because more of us are realizing that the pace of change in the world around us is accelerating at an almost frightening pace, there have been a number of studies and reports in the last couple of years on the world security environment.
One overwhelming, common conclusion in them is that America and Americans are increasingly vulnerable to a broadening array of threats from a variety of actors around the world.
Status of HR1158:
3/21/2001: Referred to the House Committee on Government Reform.
4/23/2001: Referred to the Subcommittee on National Security, Veterans Affairs and International Relations.
4/24/2001: Joint Hearings Held by the Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings and Emergency Management and by the Subcommittee on National Security, Veterans Affairs, and International Relations (Government Reform Committee).
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Skelton proposes HR1292
TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE IKE SKELTON
BEFORE THE TRANSPORTATION AND GOVERNMENT REFORM COMMITTEES ON HOMELAND SECURITY ISSUES
APRIL 24, 2001
...
I think all of us here today would agree that the United States needs to improve its ability to provide security for our citizens, our territory and our infrastructure against terrorist attacks. Unfortunately, domestic terrorism is an increasing national problem, and the sad truth is that the federal, state and local governmental structures now in place do not operate in an efficient, coordinated and coherent way to provide adequate homeland security for our citizens. ..
Status of H.R.1292
3/29/2001:
Referred to the Committee on Armed Services, and in addition to the Committees on Transportation and Infrastructure, the Judiciary, and Intelligence (Permanent Select), for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned.
3/29/2001: Referred to House Armed Services
4/4/2001: Executive Comment Requested from DOD.
8/10/2001: Unfavorable Executive Comment Received from DOD.
(I'd like to see that "unfavorable' comment)
3/29/2001: Referred to House Transportation and Infrastructure
3/30/2001: Referred to the Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings and Emergency Management.
4/24/2001: Joint Hearing Held by the Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings and Emergency Management and by the Subcommittee on National Security, Veteran's Affairs and International Relations (Government Reform).
3/29/2001: Referred to House Judiciary
4/19/2001: Referred to the Subcommittee on Crime.
3/29/2001: Referred to House Select Committee on Intelligence
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Prepared Statement of Charles G. Boyd, Executive Director of the U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century before a Joint Meeting of the Subcommittee on National Security, Veterans Affairs, and International Relations of the House Committee on Government Reform and the Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings, and Emergency Management of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, U.S. House of Representatives, April 24, 2001 .....
It is the view of the Commission that the three bills before the Congress do not essentially contradict one another. H.R.525, in our view, calls for a limited organizational adaptation. It is not fully consistent with H.R. 1158 but could be made so, for it captures the need for effective interagency processes as part of any solution. H.R. 1292 deals most essentially with the question of overall strategy and the need to devise coherent ways of designing budgets for homeland security that accord with strategy. While these matters stand separate from the proposals embedded in H.R. 1158, they express perfectly the sense of the U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century.
In the Commission’s view, the United States needs to inculcate strategic thinking and behavior throughout the entire national security structure. I want to be clear, therefore, as to what the Commission’s proposal for a National Homeland Security Agency is designed to do, and what it is not, in and of itself, designed to do.
We conceive of the National Homeland Security Agency is a part of, not a substitute for, a strategic approach to the problem of homeland security. Even with the creation of the National Homeland Security Agency, the National Security Council will still play a critical role in coordinating the various government departments and agencies involved in homeland security. The National Security Council also must play the key role in the government’s overall strategy function. The Commission proposed three components for a homeland security strategy—to prevent, to protect, and to respond—to the problem of terrorism and other threats to the homeland. We believe that H.R. 1292 would facilitate the development of a serious integrated strategy for homeland security at the NSC level, even if its specific conclusions may differ from those of the Commission.
Having a strategy, and a coherent budget process to match that strategy, is in our view a necessary, but not a sufficient, condition to repair the inadequacies in current U.S. Government organization.
We believe that the United States stands in dire need of stronger organizational mechanisms for homeland security. We need to clarify accountability, responsibility, and authority among the departments and agencies with a role to play in this increasingly critical area. We need to realign diffused responsibilities because, frankly, several critical components of U.S. homeland security policy are located in the wrong places. We also need to recapitalize several of these critical components, not least the Coast Guard, the Customs Service, and the Border Patrol.
Unlike H.R. 525, which establishes a policy council that duplicates existing NSC mechanisms, H.R. 1158 contends that we need a Cabinet-level agency for this purpose, and the Commission agrees. The job is too big, and requires too much operational activity, to be housed at the NSC staff. It is too important to a properly integrated national strategy to be handled off-line by a "czar." Certainly, no council or interagency working group that lacks a permanent staff will suffice. We believe that the importance of this issue requires an organizational focus of sufficient heft to cooperate with the Departments of State, Defense, and Justice in an efficient and effective way. H.R. 1158 is consonant with this aim.
The purpose of realigning assets in this area, as proposed in H.R. 1158, is to get more than the sum of the parts from our efforts. It does not propose vast new undertakings. It does not propose a highly centralized bureaucratic behemoth. It does not propose to spend vastly more money than we are spending now. It does propose a realignment and a rationalization of what we already do, so that we can do it right. It proposes to match authority, responsibility, and accountability. It proposes to solve the "Who’s in charge?" problem. Most important, it proposes to do this in such a way as to guarantee the civil liberties we all hold dear.
More specifically, H.R. 1158 would consolidate border protection. ....
One final point, if I may. All fourteen, without dissent, agreed to put this Government to see to the common defense. All fourteen, without dissent, agreed to put this subject first and foremost in the final Phase III report. All fourteen, seven Democrats and seven Republicans, are ready to promote this recommendation on a fully bipartisan basis. All agree, too, that some combination of the three bills under discussion today, modified somewhat, would constitute the fulfillment of the Commission’s recommendations on homeland security at least in large part.
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Combating Terrorism: Options to Improve the Federal Response
Testimony to the U.S.House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings, and Emergency Management and the U.S.House Committee on Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security, Veterans Affairs, and International Relations April 24, 2001
Frank J. Cilluffo
Chairman, Committee on Combating Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Terrorism, Homeland Defense Initiative
Centerfor Strategic & International Studies
If the president and Congress set their sights on the careful crafting and comprehensive implementation of a national counterterrorism strategy, it will happen. I am confident that President Bush and Vice President Cheney, in conjunction with the Congress, can and will rise to the challenge.
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Statement by the President Domestic Preparedness Against Weapons of Mass Destruction
For Immediate Release - Office of the Press Secretary
May 8, 2001
Protecting America's homeland and citizens from the threat of weapons of mass destruction is one of our Nation's important national security challenges. Today, more nations possess chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons than ever before. Still others seek to join them. Most troubling of all, the list of these countries includes some of the world's least-responsible states -- states for whom terror and blackmail are a way of life. Some non-state terrorist groups have also demonstrated an interest in acquiring weapons of mass destruction.
Against this backdrop, it is clear that the threat of chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons being used against the United States -- while not immediate -- is very real. That is why our Nation actively seeks to deny chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons to those seeking to acquire them. That is why, together with our allies, we seek to deter anyone who would contemplate their use. And that is also why we must ensure that our Nation is prepared to defend against the harm they can inflict. ......
Therefore, I have asked Vice President Cheney to oversee the development of a coordinated national effort so that we may do the very best possible job of protecting our people from catastrophic harm. I have also asked Joe Allbaugh, the Director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, to create an Office of National Preparedness. This Office will be responsible for implementing the results of those parts of the national effort overseen by Vice President Cheney that deal with consequence management. Specifically it will coordinate all Federal programs dealing with weapons of mass destruction consequence management within the Departments of Defense, Health and Human Services, Justice, and Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, and other federal agencies. The Office of National Preparedness will work closely with state and local governments to ensure their planning, training, and equipment needs are addressed. FEMA will also work closely with the Department of Justice, in its lead role for crisis management, to ensure that all facets of our response to the threat from weapons of mass destruction are coordinated and cohesive. I will periodically chair a meeting of the National Security Council to review these efforts.
No governmental responsibility is more fundamental than protecting the physical safety of our Nation and its citizens. In today's world, this obligation includes protection against the use of weapons of mass destruction. I look forward to working closely with Congress so that together we can meet this challenge.
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FEMA Director Joe M. Allbaugh Statement Regarding Department Of Homeland Security
Release Date: June 6, 2002
Release Number: 02-072
Washington, D.C.-- I congratulate the President for his bold and innovative proposal. The American people deserve accountability and clarity, and this plan provides both. The new Department of Homeland Security will bring together the people and information needed to make America and all Americans safer. President Bush is an agent for change and this is a great step in the right direction.
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