NY-29 Campaign News: Cleland KOs Bush, Cheney is Coming

[trillian]

Cross posted from Eric Massa's post at dkos

As you read this, I am hard on the campaign trail with my hero and true American ICON, former 9/11 Commissioner Senator Max Cleland. Today this true American hero and champion of Veterans causes is in the second day of a three-day visit to the 29th Congressional district. I will try to peel away from the campaign trail today between events to live blog here. You can see just how busy we are by visiting the Massa for Congress calendar of events. But even if I am not able to stop by to chat, please allow me to relay some of the tremendous insights that we have gained after spending only a few days together with Senator Cleland.

The Knockout Blow: Bush Administration Obsession with Saddam Allowed 9/11 to Happen

Senator Cleland has said before that President Bush and his administrative team were so obsessed with Saddam Hussein that they ignored much of the intelligence about Al Qaeda prior to 9/11. He has also said that the Bush administration was uncooperative with 9/11 Commission because they wanted to cover up just how much information was given to them about bin Laden and Al Qaeda prior to 9/11. (link)

Obsession with Saddam after 9/11 Compromised War Against Terrorists

Many of us, including Senator Cleland, have been saying for some time now that Bush’s obsession with Saddam caused him to take his eye off the ball in Afghanistan prematurely to fight an unnecessary war in Iraq. We’ve also been saying that the President and others in his administration lied to us about connections between Saddam and Al Qaeda in order to divert the war effort from Afghanistan into Iraq . A recent study released by the Senate Intelligence Committee has now confirmed that there were no connections between Saddam and Al Qaeda. So the evidence that President Bush allowed his obsession with Saddam to interfere with fighting the war against terrorists in Afghanistan is pretty strong.

But, in addition to the post-9/11 evidence that the President’s obsession with Saddam compromised our war against the terrorists actually responsible for 9/11, there is also pre-9/11 evidence that President Bush and his whole team were so obsessed with Saddam that they ignored warnings that were given to them, including the now famous President Daily Briefing, from August 2001, that warned that Bin Laden was determined to strike inside the US.

The Pre-9/11 Obsession with Saddam

First, let’s document the attention focused on Iraq. Even before he was the Republican nominee in 2000, President Bush told Lebanese businessman that he planned to get Saddam. (link) From Paul O?Neill we have testimony that Saddam was a main topic at the very first meetings of the Bush Administration. (link) Iraq also may have been a target of discussion of oil field acquisitions by the NSC in February 2001. (link)

Lack of Focus on Al Qaeda, Domestic Terrorism Threats

It was about this same time, February 2001, that we finally confirmed that Al Qaeda was responsible for attacks on the USS Cole. Nothing meaningful seems to have been done in response to this knowledge. One Clinton NSC official who remained at the NSC four months into the Bush Administration noted a lack of focus as compared with the Clinton team (link) :

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."

Even after we had confirmed that Bin Laden and Al Qaeda were responsible for 9/11, in May of 2001 President Bush sent $43 million to the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan (at a time when at a time when the United Nations imposed sanctions on Afghanistan because the Kabul government would not turn over Bin Laden) and made a deal to give them aid if they would not grow poppies to produce opium. No other strings, like forcing them to turn over Bin Laden, were attached. (link)

Februrary 2001 was also the month that the Hart-Rudman Commission final report came out. It had predicted that something like 9/11 could happen and made recommendations to prevent it. But the Bush administration chose to ignore those recommendations and basically shut down the commission. They made an empty promise that vice-president Cheney would do another study later. The day after 9/11 an article appeared in Salon that detailed what had been predicted (link)

During 2001 and before 9/11 there were several other congressional initiatives that might have made a difference. They were also ignored. (link) In fact the Bush administration threatened to veto legislation that would have moved $600 million from Star Wars to fill gaps in the anti-terrorism budget.

Post 9/11: Even After Obvious Failure, Obsession With Saddam Unabated

And yet with all that evidence, after 9/11 happened, that they had mistakenly ignored domestic terrorist threats, the very next day Bush Administration officials were back to looking for an excuse to get at Saddam. (link) Knowing that shows that a big part of the reason they were not taking domestic terrorism as seriously as they should have prior to 9/11 is that they must have been obsessed with Saddam all along the way. That they were willing to lie in order to use 9/11 as an excuse to further their obsession with getting at Saddam is a betrayal of the public trust. We all know what came next. And now the cream of our armed forces are bogged down in a war in Iraq that was originally completely unrelated to 9/11.

Cheney Coming to NY-29

Today my opponent announced that Vice President Dick Cheney will be visiting the District to try to raise money in the Rochester area. On September 29 the Vice-President will host a $1000-a-plate fundraiser in Rochester. This comes after I have outraised my opponent in-district for three straight quarters. We are planning to take advantage of the visit and will be announcing special events and perhaps an Anti-Cheney Fundraiser in the near future.


Conclusion
As we come to the fifth anniversary of that tragic day in 2001, it is time to call for accountability: both for the obsessions and failures of the Bush Administration that allowed it to happen and their abuse of the public trust that followed. The only way to make them accountable is to elect a Democratic Congress. Though many of them are running from the President during this campaign season, the Republican-controlled congress has been little more than a rubber-stamp for the Bush administration. We need your help. Donate :: Volunteer :: Vote!

[wiley]

1. Thanks!