March 24, 2004
MIRROR IMAGE
U.S. OK’d plan to topple Taliban a day before 9/11, Panel report faults intelligence, lack of will (MSNBC, 3/23/04)
After years of delay caused by inadequate intelligence, the U.S. government decided just one day before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that it would try to overthrow the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan if a diplomatic push to expel Osama bin Laden from the country failed, the independent panel investigating the attacks reported Tuesday. . . .So, the criticism is that we should have acted pre-9/11 in Afghanistan the way we acted in post-9/11 Iraq and in post-9/11 Iraq the way we acted in pre-9/11 Afghanistan?The report alleges that the Clinton and Bush administrations moved slowly against the al-Qaida terror network in the years before the attacks, partly because they lacked detailed intelligence that would have allowed a military strike and partly because they preferred to explore diplomatic alternatives. As a result, bin Laden and other al-Qaida leaders were able to elude capture repeatedly.
I'm all for holding people responsible for being wrong ex post, even if they seemed to be right ex ante. (This is almost a religious view. It flows from my scepticism about the inherent limits of human knowledge. Also, some people just seem to have a knack for being right ex post beyond what chance would allow for. Because I don't think those people are necessarily beloved of G-d, this doesn't quite edge over into religion.) This, however, seems to me to be something a little different: a sort of situational analysis that measures human action against perfection. We went into Iraq in part because of the lessons of 9/11. Intelligence is always lacking. There are always gaps and they are always filled by guessing. Pre-9/11 we thought we could wait for certainty, not because we thought Al Qaeda wouldn't act but because we thought we were willing to take whatever damage their first (ok, fifth) strike would inflict.
Posted by David Cohen at March 24, 2004 8:58 AMI'm trying to have a detached view of the 9/11 hearings rather than a partisan view. My take so far is that Clinton didn't appear to be serious about terrorism until after the Cole attack in 2000. With little time left they simply handed to the incoming Bush administration a variety of plans/ideas to combat terrorism. The Bush administration needed some time to get organized and up to speed and was thinking about terrorism (as shown by this item and by the coordinated plan that went to Bush on 9/4) but ran out of time on 9/11.
And as OJ notes it is interesting watching all the people saying Bush acted without perfect intelligence in Iraq criticizing Bush for not acting with perfect intelligence on 9/11.
I'm trying not to be partisan, but it's difficult.
One (I think) non-partisan lesson I'm taking from the hearings is the danger that comes with changing administrations. Even without the Florida distractions, it was predictable that the US eye would be taken off the AQ ball.
Posted by: David Cohen at March 24, 2004 10:49 AMSo, let's run a thought experiment. The planes still hit the towers, but they bounce off and instead of thousands dead, the total is a few dozen.
How does that change things?
I'm afraid, it would have changed things a great deal.
Takes a big whack upside the head to get some people's attention.
I agree about wisdom after the fact. Sen. Kerrey is fulminating about why we didn't unleash the drums of war, but he was there then, and I don't recall he was saying that then.
As for the big issue, seems to me that if someone may be threatening you with weapons of mass destruction(or, as we used to say, our way of life), then you are entitled -- even obliged -- to take whatever steps you think prudent, as soon as possible, unless you are 100% certain that WMD are not a threat.
All this navel-gazing about measured response, careful calculation etc. is silly.
I refer forward to David's post about the guy with the samurai sword.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at March 24, 2004 1:50 PMI was able to hear no more than 15 minutes of Madelaine Albright's testimony - - it was so deplorable, hearing her superlative-laden platitudes:
"... we did everything we could..."
[the Clinton administration's lack of response was because] "...we didn't have all the answers..."
[I] "started every single day" [working on this matter of terrorist threats]
re: "...we didn't have all the answers..."
As you point out, we consistently lack the luxury of having ALL the answers. In fact, such a criterion would reduce a person to essential inactivity... a snail's pace.
re: "...started every single day..."
As for starting every single day on a given issue, how could any person on the job begin EVERY single day, without exception, on a given matter? Perhaps a guy on death row, one month from execution, could START every single day on that all-important issue (or maybe those Air Force guys who drove out to their assigned nuclear missile complexes in South Dakota, forced by military routine to drive up to a particular gate and follow a regimented routine for the sake of security.)
Would we tolerate a manager(Secretary of State?!) who literally followed a policy of "FIRST-thing" attending to a given issue EVERY SINGLE day? Without ANY exception? Having to urgently arrive at the State Department for a critical development, Madelaine would have to arrive EVEN EARLIER in order to FIRST deal with the routine "terrorist matter" before dealing with the urgent matter. It's preposterous. Also, the matter which "started every single day" just happened to be the very same matter which Madelaine was to testify about yesterday. What coincidence. What a pandering liar.
Posted by: Larry H at March 24, 2004 2:55 PMHarry -- It's not at all edifying, but it's interesting to draw the war/no war line. I agree that if the 9/11 attacks had fizzled, no war. What if only one tower had been hit? What if they hadn't fallen? What if all three were augered into the ground in unpopulated areas?
As it happens, the more I think about it, the more convinced I become that with a different president (Gore and maybe Clinton) the Taliban would still be in control of Afghanistan.
Posted by: David Cohen at March 24, 2004 3:02 PMDavid - I agree. And the domestic political battles over presidential inaction would have crippled us even more (right up until the bioweapon or nuclear bomb goes off). The lack of courage is the main factor in the West right now, from Chirac and the new Spanish PM all the way down to the grungy war protestors. Too many comparisons with the 1930s.
Posted by: jim hamlen at March 24, 2004 6:00 PMHearing of part of Cohen's testimony I'm convinced the problem was a lack of administrative leadership. As Cohen implied the polls would never have supported action in Afghanistan prior to 9/11 ... so how could they do anything. Trust the democrats with national security? In dreams of utopia possibly.
Posted by: Genecis at March 24, 2004 9:12 PMThe press, which is the real enemy, seems to be able to mouth both sides of the contradiction without wincing. A flash from 1984, is it called doublespeak or duckspeak?
Posted by: Robert Schwartz at March 24, 2004 11:24 PM