WaPo details how Chimpy & Co. dropped the ball on terrorism prior to 9/11

[jefferson_dem]

Here are a few snippets of a devastating piece on Chimp's pre 9/11 ineptitude ---


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:


The administration did not resume its predecessor's covert deployment of cruise missile submarines and gunships, on six-hour alert near Afghanistan's borders. The standby force gave Clinton the option, never used, of an immediate strike against targets in al Qaeda's top leadership. The Bush administration put no such capability in place before Sept. 11.


<SNIP>


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.

<SNIP>

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A8734-2002Jan19

[babylonsister]

1. Relevant still, but printed on Sunday, January 20, 2002, FYI. nt

[Straight Shooter]

2. I guess the bullhorn effect still had everyone under its spell.

Seems like this article drifted into no man's land, as if it had never existed.

Somewhere along the way, WaPo lost its own balls, didn't it.

(edit to add, the gullible were under its spell.)

[babylonsister]

3. Though written after the bullhorn b.s., the WaPo sure did

take a dive for "m"ush. I initially checked to see if Dana Milbank was involved in writing this. I should have known better!

[bleever]

4. "Path to 9/11" opened up a closet full of Bushco skeletons.

Chris Wallace's sandbagging of Clinton took it up a notch, as did Faux's brilliant idea to headline it as "Clinton gets crazed."

The bullies fucked up, big time. The national scab that grew over 9/11, culminating in the the 9/11 Commission's "no on in particular is to blame" Band-aid, buried in the national consciousness even the narrative that Richard Clarke spelled out about how * and Condi poo-pooed the warnings about bin Laden and went back to Cold War era thinking about national security.

All that is oozing back out, now that they picked the scab hoping that the blood would bring the poll numbers up.

Hammer 'em hard, I say.

[creeksneakers2]

5. One of the best examples of journalism this decade

This WP article was written only 4 months after 9/11 and revealed what took two more years to come out in the rest of the media. It wasn't until 2004 when Richard Clarke published his book that the rest of the media started covering the story of how Bush refused to become involved in the fight against Al Qaeda.