April 8, 2004

Battle Stations

Another observation about Condoleezza Rice's performance today. All the media outlets quoted her scripted line that Al Qaeda was at war with America before 9/11, but "we were not at war with them." No one seems to have noticed that, in defending President Bush's refusal to hold what Dick Clarke called a "principals" meeting (Cabinet secretaries and department heads) on terrorism, Rice contradicted herself, saying "the president of the United States had us at battle stations" prior to 9/11.

I just don't buy the argument that we weren't shaking the trees enough and that something was going to fall out that gave us somehow that little piece of information that would have led to connecting all of those dots. In any case, you cannot be dependent on the chance that something might come together. That's why the structural reforms are important.

And the president of the United States had us at battle stations during this period of time. He expected his secretary of state to be locking down embassies. He expected his secretary of defense to be providing force protection. . . . He expected his FBI director to be tasking his agents and getting people out there. But I think we've created a kind of false impression -- or a not quite correct impression -- of how one does this in the threat period.

(Check out the full transcript yourself and see.)

rice.jpgIf we weren't at war, something everyone knows is true, how could the White House have been at "battle stations" in Summer 2001? You can't have it both ways, Condi. Either there was no "actionable intelligence" of "specific threats" -- thus justifing no increased security steps -- or the country was on high alert and sent to battle stations. But if the latter is true, it means the "threat spike" in May-July was serious and specific enough to act. Problem is, nothing was done. As one 9/11 Commission member pointed out today, the White House issued such a vague "alert" that the heads of FAA, Transportation and the FBI didn't even know about it before the World Trade Centers went down!!

 Posted by glenn

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