WP on Sat said Bush pre-9/11 policy was Clinton policy (sans the effort)

[papau]

It takes a long article to say Bush pre-9/11 policy was Clinton policy sans the effort - but with a goal to not only continue Clinton aid to the Northern Alliance and the anti-Taliban Pashtunsbut to also increase direct financial and logistical support - and to overthrow eventually the Taliban through proxies.

The Wash Post aricle forgets this todo was scheduled by Bush to occur after they got the Afghan pipeline OK'd.

Only if the Taliban said no to the pipeline, would I have expected the "to be drafted plan of a possible U.S. military involvement" to even be looked at by Bush.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28272-2004Mar26.html

Analysis
Bush, Clinton Varied Little on Terrorism

By Dana Milbank and Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, March 27, 2004; Page A01


For all the sniping over efforts by the Bush and Clinton administrations to thwart terrorism, information from this week's hearings into the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks suggests that the two administrations pursued roughly the same policies before the terrorist strikes occurred.


Witness testimony and the findings of the commission investigating the attacks indicate that even the new policy to combat Osama bin Laden and his Taliban hosts, developed just before Sept. 11, was in most respects similar to the old strategy pursued first by Clinton and then by Bush.

The commission's determination that the two policies were roughly the same calls into question claims made by Bush officials that they were developing a superior terrorism policy. The findings also put into perspective the criticism of President Bush's approach to terrorism by Richard A. Clarke, the former White House counterterrorism chief: For all his harsh complaints about Bush administration's lack of urgency in regard to terrorism, he had no serious quarrel with the actual policy Bush was pursuing before the 2001 attacks. <snip>


In fact, according to the details that emerged this week, most of the strategies approved by high-level Bush officials on Sept. 4 and Sept. 10, 2001, were nearly identical in thrust to the policies pursued by the Clinton team. The plans grew out of long-standing proposals made by Clarke in 1998 and 2000 -- ideas derided this week by Rice as a "laundry list" of ideas that were previously "tried or rejected."

Clarke's 1998 and 2000 proposals were not formally adopted by the Clinton administration, but most of the ideas, except his call for continuous bombings of al Qaeda and Taliban targets, served informally to guide policy. Clarke submitted both proposals, along with a request for short-term actions, to the Bush team on Jan. 25, 2001. The suggestions formed the basis for the Bush strategy that was adopted nearly eight months later. <snip>

[Old and In the Way]

1. In retrospect, I think it is clear that the Bush administration was on

2 parallel tracks.

(1) Negotiate with the Taliban to get a pipeine built
(2) Plan their war on Iraq (see secret energy meetings)

What I wonder is, would the pipeline in Afghanistan be connected to the NE oil fields in Iraq? I know there was discussion about the the pipeline handling oil in the Caspian Sea basin, but seems that a pipeline from Iraq to Enron's plant in India wouldn't be far-fetched...anyone know?

[The Magistrate]

2. The Key Element In This, Sir

Is that the criminals of the '00 Coup thought they could manage the Taliban, or even reach some rapproachment with them, for they see themselves as hard men of the world, unlike, in their view, the naive functionaries of President Clinton. They felt that negotiations for this pipeline, which is a notional thing, in truth, that has no practical prospect of being built, or ever has had, would serve as a means to channel personal bribes to the Taliban, as the certification of opium suppression about that same time did. It seems quite likely to me that, during this period, some deliberate blind eye was turned at the highest levels toward activities of Al Queda, as another species of grease, and to foreclose the possibility of embarrassing head-lines that an couple of arrests might produce.

That they were being played by the Taliban, of course, would never occur to these Mayberry Machiavellis, so naive in their self-image of themselves as the hardest and most cunning creatures on the planet. They never asked themselves why the Taliban were even willing to sit down with them and talk about anything. The Taliban did so, it seems to me, precisely to provide cover for the final stages of the plot in train for the attacks that September....

"A fool lies here who tried to hustle the East."

"LET'S GO GET THOSE BUSH BASTARDS!"

[Old and In the Way]

3. Indeed Sir!

A combination of greed, hubris, and ignorance is a very deadly combination....as the families of 9/11 victims know, too well.