But hes wrong. Absent the angst over the war W would have won by more.

Very possibly. But objectively, apart from the media propaganda campaign, the war has been a great success. And if 9/11 hadn't happened, there would still have been a media blitz that would have drummed up angst about something -- deficits, whatever. At least the war focused voters' attention on a single issue where Bush had a strong case, and could make his case heard.

oj--

9/11 is not "the war." The war may or may not have helped Bush. Letting 9/11 happen was the smartest thing he ever did.

ss --

You make a poor provocateur. Time to Move On.

curt--

Oh, don't give up so easily. Maybe you can think of some way to defend the Bush Administration's conduct.

Absent 9-11 and the shock that would have given the economy, the recovery happens faster and Bush still wins. Also, had 9-111 not happened, Kerry would not have been the nominee because the only reason he was was that the Dems mistakenly thought that the reflected glare from Kerry's medals would blind people to his voting record and think he'd be a viable wartime president after all. Absent the need to give lip service to national security they would have picked another candidate.

Mark--

I think you got the effects right, but the magnitude wrong. Bush's approval rose from 45% (IIRC) to about 90% in a couple of weeks. No economic boost has ever done that. I agree with you about Kerry--he was stupidly chosen for his medals.

SS - Don't you have to publish the attack on Bush's conduct, before he can mount the defense? I missed the case against Bush.

pj--

I believe the Admin's utter neglect of terrorism despite the previous attempts on America, the warnings from the Clinton people, and the incessant sounding of the alarm by the career people in the Admin is well-known and well-documented.

SS:
Kerry was chosen not because of, but in spite of, his medals. The NVA/Sandinista Candidate represented the soul of the folk-traitor/culture-enemy left wing of the one-winged Democrat party.

Now that's what a GOOD provocateur sounds like.

If Bill Clinton or Al Gore ever spoke about terrorism, I must have missed it. If they ever did anything about it, I know I missed it.

Tom Brokaw has admitted the media exacerbated the problem by not covering the issue.

Does FDR deserve credit for "letting Pearl Harbor happen"?

Jim,

Don't exaggerate. They did bomb a Sudanese aspirin factory.

SS,

How did Clinton retaliate for the bombing of the USS Cole?

I wouldn't go target shooting with S.S.

She seems to miss everything by about 180%.

Of course, I meant degrees.

jim--

If Bill Clinton or Al Gore ever spoke about terrorism, I must have missed it. If they ever did anything about it, I know I missed it.

Well, of course, the question was about Bush and Cheney. But since you raised the point I'll answer: read the 9/11 Commission report. You may want to compare the actions of the two administrations following the arrests of Ahmed Ressam (LAX bomb plot)and of Zacarias Moussaoui. One resulted in "constant" principal-level meetings and a public announcement to raise awareness, one in nothing at all. Or you may simply wish to compare the massive amount of planning for overseas intervention, the success in foiling plots, the number of convictions, etc. between the two administrations.

I would especially recommend the chapter "The System was Blinking Red," about the Summer of 2001. Some choice nuggets: subsequent to the August 6 PDB "We have found no indication of any further discussion before September 11 among the President and his top advisers of the possibility of a threat of an al Qaeda attack in the United States." "(P)ublicity about Moussaoui's arrest and a possible hijacking threat might have derailed the plot."
"In sum, the domestic agencies never mobilized in response to the threat. They did not have direction, and did not have a plan to institute. The borders were not hardened. Transportation systems were not fortified. Electronic surveillance was not targeted against a domestic threat. State and local law enforcement were not marshaled to augment the FBI's efforts."
It is unimaginable that this would have been the case with the Clinton Administration.

http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/index.htm

Randall--

She seems to miss everything by about 180 (degrees).

Oh, you cut me to the quick. Bush did foil the 9/11 plot, and it was during the Clinton Administration that al Qaeda successfully attacked US soil.

On the other hand, people with their heads up their asses are still facing forward, so maybe being 180 degrees off from you isn't so bad.

Lou--

The NVA/Sandinista Candidate represented the soul of the folk-traitor/culture-enemy left wing of the one-winged Democrat party.

I give up--what the hell are you talking about? Is this in some initiate language to which I am not privy? Is it an anagram? What is a folk-traitor? What is a culture-enemy? I like the use of "the ... Democrat party," though. By turning the adjective into a noun it gains the charm of an expression like "the Jew Senator."

Still, more perplexed than provoked.

It is unimaginable that this would have been the case with the Clinton Administration.

Yeah, it's not like the 9/11 terrorists entered the country under Clinton or anything.

Yeah, it's not like the 9/11 terrorists entered the country under Clinton or anything.

As opposed to the Bush Administration, which stopped Cat Stevens.

SS - The actions you credit the Clinton administration for taking -- in eight years -- are meetings, press conferences, and internal memos proposing plans that never got implemented. You're making Bush's case here.

The pre-9/11 period was too short for Bush to develop plans and take effective action -- though he was preparing an action plan against Al Qaeda. Absent 9/11, we could have had comparable scenarios to compare Bush with Clinton -- but we'll never know that counterfactual. You certainly haven't made the case that in that scenario Bush would have been as ineffective as Clinton was.

I welcome your proposal to use "success in foiling plots, the number of convictions, etc. between the two administrations" as the yardstick in measuring the two administrations. I believe Ashcroft's convictions of suspected terrorists are close to a thousand, plus the thousands in Guantanamo might count. Can you supply data on Clinton-era convictions?

The number of foiled plots doesn't seem to be publicly available. Data we do have available is number of successful plots. During the Clinton administration, at least four; Bush since 9/11, zero. However many the Bush administration foiled, it was enough.

pj--

I believe Ashcroft's convictions of suspected terrorists are close to a thousand

Off by a factor of a thousand. Richard Reid, shoe bomber. That's it.

The pre-9/11 period was too short for Bush to develop plans and take effective action

Fortunately, the FBI, CIA, and CSG (Richard Clarke's group) already existed and were experienced in handling this. Bush chose not to deploy them.

The number of foiled plots doesn't seem to be publicly available.

Of course it is. This Administration goes public whenever it arrests someone with some sort of connection to the Taliban or al Qaeda. They just haven't been able to cite any plots.

number of successful plots. During the Clinton administration, at least four

Since you seem to insist on counting overseas strikes, perhap you'd like to count the number of times car bombs have killed Americans in Iraq. Apples to apples, and all that.

Absent 9/11, we could have had comparable scenarios to compare Bush with Clinton -- but we'll never know that counterfactual.

The point is that with a lower perceived threat level the Clinton people worked on the issue constantly, with mediocre-to-good-results. With a vastly increased threat level, the Bush people did nothing, with disastrous results.

SS -

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48011-2004Jul13.html "terrorism investigations have resulted in charges against 310 people and have yielded 179 convictions or guilty pleas."

As for the Clintonites, remember Bush kept them on. According to Time (http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,333835,00.html), they didn't develop plans for Clinton until the very end of his term, and the plans moved 'as fast as could be expected' through the Bush administration: 'The proposals Clarke developed in the winter of 2000-01 were not [heard] by top decision makers until late April, and then spent another four months making their laborious way through the bureaucracy before they were readied for approval by President Bush.... Clarke told Time that the review moved "as fast as could be expected."'

It's simply false that the Administration reveals all about foiled plots.

For my four cases, choose from among: WTC bombing 1993; Oklahoma City bombing 1995; Khobar Towers 1996; Kenya and Tanzania embassies 1998; US Cole 2000. The foreign cases are all attacks on US military or foreign service personnel stationed abroad. (I said 4 and list 5 because I know you will doubt that Oklahoma City was an Islamicist attack.) If you want to count Iraq bombings as terror attacks, fine, but surely there's a difference between fighting that we've instigated versus the terrorists and fighting the terrorists instigate with no response from us.

If the Bush administration did nothing against terrorism, why have Afghanistan and Iraq been in the news?

pj--

"terrorism investigations have resulted in charges against 310 people and have yielded 179 convictions or guilty pleas."

The 179 that Ashcroft claims include many who were accused of helping the Taliban fight us. Some who visited al Qaeda camps and left in disgust. Only one man who was actually involved in a terror plot.

Not one of the several thousand Guantanamo detainees has been convicted.

As for the Clintonites, remember Bush kept them on.

Clarke was demoted and couldn't get a principals' meeting. Tenet was ignored when running around with his "hair on fire."

It's simply false that the Administration reveals all about foiled plots.

I didn't say reveal all--I said reveal that they busted one. And you know they do that.

Clarke told Time that the review moved "as fast as could be expected."

Clarke was still a member of the Administration when he said that. Anyway, the issue is not whether we would have attacked overseas. That is a long-term strategy and clearly would not have stopped 9/11. The issue is taking appropriate domestic security measures. That was not done.

If you want to count Iraq bombings as terror attacks, fine, but surely there's a difference between fighting that we've instigated versus the terrorists

The Iraqis weren't the terrorists. Zarqawi was, but we specifically chose before the war not to take him out--that would have weakened the justification for war. But the war did provide terrorists (both Zarqawi and foreign terrorists) with targets--lots of them, in a concentrated area. So I will count those bombings.

I said 4 and list 5 because I know you will doubt that Oklahoma City was an Islamicist attack.

I appreciate you giving me credit for some sense.

If the Bush administration did nothing against terrorism, why have Afghanistan and Iraq been in the news?

We're talking pre-9/11 here. I think everyone was on board with fighting terror afterwards.

SS:

Your assertions that some sufficiently motivated administration could have prevented the 9-11 attacks is simplistic.

The measures required to prevent 9-11 were impossible pre 9-11. It took the disaster to prevent another.

BTW--I was an airline pilot then. I know precisely whereof I speak.

Similarly, your criticisms of the Bush administration's war in Iraq are, at the very least, facile.

Given the status quo ante, what would you, as president, have done with regard to Hussein?

Please provide a thorough answer.

Which would be a first. For all the carping from the left about what we did, I have heard scarcely a syllable about any alternative.

BTW--I was an airline pilot then. I know precisely whereof I speak.

So you know that following up on the Phoenix memo and the Moussaoui arrest would lead to nothing? That an emergency interception plan was impossible? I certainly didn't know that.

Similarly, your criticisms of the Bush administration's war in Iraq are, at the very least, facile.

I simply said that it isn't the War on Terror. It's not indisputably true, but the lack of post hoc evidence found in Iraq does tend to bear me out.

Given the status quo ante, what would you, as president, have done with regard to Hussein?

Please provide a thorough answer.

Which would be a first. For all the carping from the left about what we did, I have heard scarcely a syllable about any alternative.

Well, one alternative would be not to invade. I'm pretty sure you should have heard that from someone on the left. Another would be to peel off the North and South, establishing free democratic protectorates for the Shia and the Kurds. 2/3 of the population free and friendly, far less chaos and opportunity for terrorists, be able to lift the sanctions on them, set the example of Arab democracy at minimal cost in money and lives. Use the loss of oil income as a bargaining chip for Saddam to loosen his grip (probably not much at all, but enough to encourage his Sunni enemies. Hold out the promise of a three-state confederacy if the Sunnis join. I would certainly have chosen either of these over full-scale invasion.

Now, what would you do about the real patrons of terror, the Saudis?

Please provide a thorough answer.

SS:

An emergency interception plan was, prior to 9-11, impossible.

The training airline pilots received with respect to hijackings amounted to something we had long done but ever recognized: negotiating with terrorists. Without the horror of 9-11, there was no changing that.

The unfortunate nature of complex systems is that it sometimes takes a catastrophe to prevent a catastrophe.

Well, one alternative would be not to invade.

That is a null hypothesis answer, which is no answer at all. The status quo ante had, due in no small part to the connivance or our putative "allies" reached a cul de sac. Continuing the sanctions was simply not an option. Leaving two options: ending the sanctions and hunkering down in Saudi and Turkey, and hoping that all Saddam's billions wouldn't purchase something really, really nasty (keep in mind he was within a year and a half of operational nuclear weapons at the time of Desert Storm, a seemingly useful piece of information our vaunted intel agencies completely missed, and we only discovered after the war.)

Interesting suggestion on "peeling off" the North and South. Just, how, precisely, does one "peel off" without doing anything?

The Saudis are a tougher nut to crack, for two reasons: God made hydrocarbons an astonisingly effective means to store energy, then made a grotesque strategic blunder and left vast pools of them under the Saudis feet.

Given the events over the last year, it seems invading Iraq, along with the Islamo fascicsts making some strategic blunders of their own, has rather concentrated the Saudis minds.

And Ghaddafis, come to think of it.

Full disclosure: I was a career military officer, with time served at both the Pentagon and Desert Storm. I'm not exactly at sea on this issue, either.

Your answer is typical (if slightly more developed) of everything I heard from the left: implicit reliance on the null hypothesis, or hypothesizing fantastic results ("peel off") without the slightest indication as to how these results were to come about.

An emergency interception plan was, prior to 9-11, impossible.

Well, actually there was one of a sort--it just wasn't executed. I have read reports (correct me if they're wrong) that the FAA rules for any flight are: if it deviates by 2 miles or 15 degrees from the flight plan, the ATCs should make contact. Failing contact, they
call for the USAF to intercept. On 9/11, the first hijacking was confirmed at 8:20. The flight that hit the Pentagon lost its transponder at 9:00. The Pentagon was hit at 9:40. What happened? For one, scrambling was delayed, perhaps by more than an hour (the Administration has given wildly varying accounts). For another, the USAF scrambled Langley instead of Andrews (which is >100 miles closer to D.C.). A procedure was there, but no plan, and no sense of urgency in making sure the system worked. It's the Administration's job, when faced with a threat, to say "are we ready for what might happen?" That question was clearly not asked by this Administration. They knew hijacking was a threat--it was in the PDB. They knew planes crashing into buildings was a threat--it was a specific concern at the G-8 in Italy that summer. They did nothing to prepare. It is also their job, when they know of a threat, to make sure all leads are followed up. Because the FBI and CIA can't share many notes, and because the field agents often can't cut through the bureaucracy, the job of driving the process is the responsibility of the National Security Advisor. She did nothing. Her boss didn't ask her to do anything. They ignored George Tenet. They had a plan for attacking overseas, but were negligent to the point of malfeasance here.

The Moussaoui 'case' wasn't followed to ground because of Jamie Gorelick's influence. The FBI (in D.C.) was basically neutered.

Who appointed, supported, and mentored her? Not John Ashcroft.

Mentioning the Assam case is a digression: it was a lucky catch by an alert Border Patrol guard. If Clinton had taken the threat to heart, the COLE would have been properly protected. They had 10 months to get ready, not even considering what happened in Africa 1.5 years before that. Or the Khobar tower 2 years earlier.

Jim--

The Moussaoui 'case' wasn't followed to ground because of Jamie Gorelick's influence.

Oh, behave!! You absolutely kill me. But, really, it would be funnier if you blamed John Kerry or Hillary. Ask your friends.

"A maximum U.S. effort to investigate Moussaoui conceivably could have unearthed his connections to Binalshibh. Those connections might have brought investigators to the core of the 9/11 plot. " says the 9-11 Commission.
http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report_Ch8.htm

But, of course, Gorelick was on that commission, apparently having clouded the minds of the other commissioners. That's probably why they didn't say "liberal do-gooders brought the investigation to a halt."

Mentioning the Assam (sic) case is a digression: it was a lucky catch by an alert Border Patrol guard.

That's why I put it in apposition to Moussaoui--after the foot soldiers did their job, what did the executive do? In Bush's case, nothing.

SS:

For various reasons, absent one or two bases near Cuba, the AF does not keep aircraft on anything like strip alert. Even if the AF had gotten word and reacted instantly, there was simply no time to launch airplanes that weren't on alert in time to intercept the airliners. Going from a cold start to wheels in the well takes about an hour

Then what? Even if they had gotten there, they would not have been armed.

BTW--the reason the didn't scramble Andrews is because there is nothing to scramble at Andrews. Langley was the closest base with fighters. In fact, it is just this sort of obvious omission that points to a lack of critical analysis. That Andrews is the base for only transport type aircraft is far from a state secret.

The ATC system was, like all large systems, beset by inertia. Within the constraints of resources, history, human nature, and the threat notable for its lack of specificity, there was simply no way to do anything to stop 9-11 until 9-11 happened.

Since then, we have done what we should have done from the very first: reinforce flight deck doors, and instruct pilots that no matter how many passengers are getting slaughtered in the back, the only suitable response is putting the aircraft on the nearest suitable piece of pavement to be met by overwhelming force once there.

Your analysis fails for the same reason most analysis from the left falls short--it neglects human nature. The entire system had gotten comfortable over 30 years with appeasing hijackers.

Human nature is what it is. There is no more meaningful justification to pillory Bush on this score than there is for Clinton's failing to declare, and conduct, war on bin Laden after he declared war on the US. In retrospect, it is clear what we should have done.

But can you imagine the hue and cry from the left had we actually invaded Afghanistan before 9-11?

BTW--you still haven't explained the viability of a null hypothesis, or how "peel off" was supposed to happen.

Jeff--

Virtually nothing you say about the NORAD emergency system is true.

For various reasons, absent one or two bases near Cuba, the AF does not keep aircraft on anything like strip alert.

Well, I'm not sure how much time strip alert gains (or why we need it near Cuba), but the FAA, Norad, and the USAF routinely coordinate to intercept commercial aircraft. Hell, they did it when Payne Stewart's Lear Jet went off course.

BTW--the reason the didn't scramble Andrews is because there is nothing to scramble at Andrews.

9/11 Commission testimony:

"MR. LEHMAN: In a short answer, why with the previous attempt of a light plane to hit the White House, wasn't Andrews Air Force Base with F-16s and Marine F-18s available, part of the alert? And I understand, and I'd also like to have you comment on what the role of the Secret Service was in scrambling those F-16s.

GEN. ARNOLD: Are you talking about scrambling the --

MR. LEHMAN: Andrews --

GEN. ARNOLD: The Andrews airplanes. It is my understanding that the Secret Service -- obviously they work with the 113th, because the president's Air Force One is located out at Andrews Air Force Base. So they had personal knowledge of those, of the people out there and the telephone number, and were-I cannot speculate whether they knew what we were doing or not, but in the urgency to get something done they made a phone call to the 113th, I learned later -- I did not know that at the time -- and asked them to get anything they could airborne, and I think the quote was "to protect the House."

GEN. MCKINLEY: And the 113th is the 113th Fighter Wing at Andrews, the District of Columbia Air National Guard F-16 Wing."

Later:

"MR. LEHMAN: To follow up on that, General Arnold, did you have authority to shoot down 93 when it was heading towards Washington? And where did you get it?

GEN. ARNOLD: A lot of discussion on that. Our intent on United 93 -- the simple answer is, to my knowledge, I did not have authority to shoot that aircraft down. We were informed after the airplane had already hit the ground. That's the simple answer.

MS. GORELICK: I'm sorry, could you say that again? You were informed of what after it hit the ground?

GEN. ARNOLD: We were informed of presidential authority some five minutes after that aircraft had hit the ground, according to our records."

Just had to read with those kids.

Going from a cold start to wheels in the well takes about an hour

The Otis ANG (Cape Cod) planes were off the ground in 8 minutes on 9/11. The Andrews ANG planes would take more than an hour? At Air Force One's home base? I don't think so.

The entire system had gotten comfortable over 30 years with appeasing hijackers.

9/11 Commission staff statement:
"FAA documents, including agency accounts published in the Federal Register on July 17, 2001, expressed the FAA’s understanding that terrorist groups were active in the United States and maintained an historic interest in targeting aviation, including hijacking"

and

"the potential for terrorist suicide hijacking in the United States was officially considered by the FAA’s Office of Civil Aviation Security dating back to at least March 1998. However in a presentation the agency made to air carriers and airports in 2000 and early 2001 the FAA discounted the threat because, “fortunately, we have no indication that any group is currently thinking in that direction.”"

although

"In a Fox News/Opinion Dynamics survey conducted at the end of the 1990s, 78 percent cited poor maintenance as “a greater threat to airline safety” than terrorism."

So perhaps we should have security run by people who read the intelligence instead of the polls.

But can you imagine the hue and cry from the left had we actually invaded Afghanistan before 9-11?

OK, I'm going to say this one more time: Bush was negligent in not protecting America from attack. Not by making invasion plans or not, not trying to overcome impossible political obstacles or not. By not responding to a threat.

Social Scientist:

I know plenty about NORAD, and among those things is that virtuall all the Fighter Interceptor Squadrons were deactivated, and, at the time, virtually no fighter aircraft carried any armament.

I have landed at Andrews plenty, and I don't recall ever seeing fighters there. There may be an ANG unit I missed, but they are far less responsive, particularly during the week, than an active duty fighter squadron.

The Otis ANG airplanes may already have been virtually ready for takeoff--8 minutes being the result of luck. Would have to be, since Otis did not have pilots sitting strip alert. I guarandarntee you that to the time it takes to notify a pilot, get him to the airplane, start engines, align the navigation system, taxi to the runway and take off is close to an hour. And you still have said nothing about what the pilot was supposed to do in the evnt of an intercept. Flip the bird at the hijackers?

The intercept of the Payne Stewart aircraft says everything and nothing. It was doable in time and space--that is, it was close enough to be reached in time, and nothing other than a look-over was required of the unarmed interceptor.

I don't care who was at the the helm, Clinton, Gore, or Bush or some unnamed draft choice, to presume that this attack could have been stopped with the information available betrays a real lack of understanding about how humans work.

The only thing that would have worked would be to do what we have done since: armor flight deck doors, and stop negotiating with terrorists. Those two actions alone, if done 30 years ago, would have prevented all the hijackings that led us to believe we knew all the costs associated with them. We didn't, and learned differently.

To blame this on Bush, or suggest we can overcome limitations of time and space, or suggest that we could have, in such a short time, enacted an order for the intercepting pilot to commit suicide is plain simplistic.

Jeff--

The Otis ANG airplanes may already have been virtually ready for takeoff--8 minutes being the result of luck. I guarandarntee you that to the time it takes to notify a pilot, get him to the airplane, start engines, align the navigation system, taxi to the runway and take off is close to an hour.

It took 6 minutes at Langley.

http://www.911timeline.net/.

I have landed at Andrews plenty, and I don't recall ever seeing fighters there.

Well, the Administration says that F-16s were scrambled out of there on 9/11.

And you still have said nothing about what the pilot was supposed to do in the evnt of an intercept. Flip the bird at the hijackers?

Well, that too. But, considering that they already knew about the WTC, and they had combat-ready F-16s, I would expect they'd shoot them down.

stop negotiating with terrorists.

I don't think they were looking to negotiate on 9/11.

I don't care who was at the the helm, Clinton, Gore, or Bush or some unnamed draft choice, to presume that this attack could have been stopped with the information available betrays a real lack of understanding about how humans work.

This is a cop-out. Because it would have been difficult to stop, it's OK that Bush didn't even exercise the most basic of his fiduciary responsibilities? Maybe Clinton or Gore wouldn't have stopped the attacks--but they would have made an effort, both on the investigative end and on the air defense end. Bush wasn't interested.

SS's belief that jets can scramble in minutes to defeat an unanticipated domestic threat is of a piece with his belief that a President, single-handedly and opposed by all the inertia of Congress and bureaucracy and an uninformed public, can in six months organize a defense that can prevent surprise attacks from unknown terrorists who can strike at a time, place, and method of their own choosing.

SS's faith in reliability of every assertion in the reports of the 9/11 commission -- a commission organized with a bipartisan membership and an implicit agreement to attach equal blame to both Democratic and Republican administrations -- is touching.

pj--

SS's belief that jets can scramble in minutes

They actually did it. The record shows this. The Administration admits this.

opposed by all the inertia of Congress

They never got a chance to oppose him--he proposed nothing. Didn't exercise any executive powers, either.

and bureaucracy

The ones sounding the alarm. I guess they did oppose him, but you have assigned them to the wrong sides of the argument.

can in six months

Eight months.

SS's faith in reliability of every assertion in the reports of the 9/11 commission

Show me they're wrong. They documented and investigated--you don't even read.

and an implicit agreement to attach equal blame to both Democratic and Republican administrations

An assumption not in evidence. But enjoy your fantasizing--it's all you have on this issue.

Social Scientist:

The attack happened on a weekday, mid-morning. Langley was right in the middle of the morning push, so there is no surprise they could get an airplane airborne in 6 minutes, without scrambling anything.

As for combat ready, though, you are well and truly at sea. Fighter units pre 9-11 didn't haul live missiles around, and it would have taken far, far longer than was available to get missiles on the planes. There is no way any of the scrambled airplanes would have had anything to shoot with.

Oh, one other thing you neglect. The hijackers turned off the transponders. ATC controllers have very little, if any, experience with skin-paint returns. So the fighters would have been scrambled virtually blind.

You miss my point about negotiating with terrorists. Our hijacking policy for the previous 30+ years was to do precisely that. All of our responses revolved around negotiating with the hijackers to gain the passengers safety. That, and that alone, was what led to 9-11. Had our policy been to meet hijackers with overhelming force, that game would have been up in 1973.

I believe one of your heroes, Richard Clarke, said that even if his recommendations had been undertaken in full, they would not have been sufficient to prevent 9-11.

The hijackers had been planning the attack for years, with the expectation the system would respond precisely as it did. The system's characteristics were wholly independent of the president. As a social scientist, I'm surprised at your Pollyannish appraisal of orginazational behavior.

One characteristic of which you need to keep firmly in mind: humans do very well in crisis situations provided they have received adequate, realistic training beforehand. You present those same humans with a crisis situation for which there is no playbook, and the results are entirely different.

Neither Clinton nor Gore would have changed the outcome in the least.

Jeff--

Fighter units pre 9-11 didn't haul live missiles around, and it would have taken far, far longer than was available to get missiles on the planes. There is no way any of the scrambled airplanes would have had anything to shoot with.

Testimony from the 9/11 Commission:

"MR. LEHMAN: The armament on the F-15s and the F-16s [scrambled from Langley] was?

GEN. ARNOLD: The armament, as I recall, and General McKinley can correct me on that, we had full-up armament on all those aircraft with both radar and heat-seeking missiles as well as guns."

And concerning the fighters from Otis:

"MR. HAMILTON: But there were military planes in the air in position to shoot down commercial aircraft.

MR. MINETA: That's right. The planes had been scrambled, I believe, from Otis at that point."

You speak with a tone of authority and claim personal experience in these matters, but, so far, everything you have attested to from your personal knowledge has been completely wrong. You may have good intentions, but you have no credibility, and I'm not going to bother refuting any more of your claims.

The relevant portion of the 9/11 report is here. There were seven domestic bases with aircraft on alert on 9/11. The only two relevant bases are Otis and Langley. The Commission rehearses the protocal for coordination between FAA and NORAD in case of a hijacking. This protocal wasn't followed and, because it didn't contemplate interception but rather called for the hijacked aircraft to be tailed at a 5 mile distance, wouldn't have made any difference if it had been followed.

As it was, the only notice the military got concerned the first plane ten minutes before it hit the first tower. The fighters at Otis took off, on about 10 minutes notice, as the first plane hit. After than, FAA was confused about what was going on and didn't communicate with NORAD. That probably didn't make any difference, given the limited amount of time involved. Planes were scrambled from Langley in enough time to intercept UL 93, if it hadn't gone down in Pa. Whether they would have shot it down is unclear.

The Commission concludes as follows:

More than the actual events, inaccurate government accounts of those events made it appear that the military was notified in time to respond to two of the hijackings, raising questions about the adequacy of the response. Those accounts had the effect of deflecting questions about the military's capacity to obtain timely and accurate information from its own sources. In addition, they overstated the FAA's ability to provide the military with timely and useful information that morning.

In public testimony before this Commission in May 2003, NORAD officials stated that at 9:16, NEADS received hijack notification of United 93 from the FAA.175This statement was incorrect. There was no hijack to report at 9:16. United 93 was proceeding normally at that time.

In this same public testimony, NORAD officials stated that at 9:24, NEADS received notification of the hijacking of American 77.176 This statement was also incorrect. The notice NEADS received at 9:24 was that American 11 had not hit the World Trade Center and was heading for Washington, D.C.177

In their testimony and in other public accounts, NORAD officials also stated that the Langley fighters were scrambled to respond to the notifications about American 77,178 United 93, or both. These statements were incorrect as well. The fighters were scrambled because of the report that American 11 was heading south, as is clear not just from taped conversations at NEADS but also from taped conversations at FAA centers; contemporaneous logs compiled at NEADS, Continental Region headquarters, and NORAD; and other records. Yet this response to a phantom aircraft was not recounted in a single public timeline or statement issued by the FAA or Department of Defense. The inaccurate accounts created the impression that the Langley scramble was a logical response to an actual hijacked aircraft.

In fact, not only was the scramble prompted by the mistaken information about American 11, but NEADS never received notice that American 77 was hijacked. It was notified at 9:34 that American 77 was lost. Then, minutes later, NEADS was told that an unknown plane was 6 miles southwest of the White House. Only then did the already scrambled airplanes start moving directly toward Washington, D.C.

Thus the military did not have 14 minutes to respond to American 77, as testimony to the Commission in May 2003 suggested. It had at most one or two minutes to react to the unidentified plane approaching Washington, and the fighters were in the wrong place to be able to help. They had been responding to a report about an aircraft that did not exist.

Nor did the military have 47 minutes to respond to United 93, as would be implied by the account that it received notice of the flight's hijacking at 9:16. By the time the military learned about the flight, it had crashed.

The 9/11 commission deals with events during the summer of 2001 here. Basically, there are two strands. First, there were many warnings about an impending attack in the Spring and Summer of '01, dying out in July. These warnings were not specific as to where the attacks would take place or what kind of attack was planned. Although the government took some action, including public warnings, internationally, very little was done domestically. The President did request a briefing on Al Qaeda plans to strike domestically:

During the spring and summer of 2001, President Bush had on several occasions asked his briefers whether any of the threats pointed to the United States. Reflecting on these questions, the CIA decided to write a briefing article summarizing its understanding of this danger. Two CIA analysts involved in preparing this briefing article believed it represented an opportunity to communicate their view that the threat of a Bin Ladin attack in the United States remained both current and serious.35 The result was an article in the August 6 Presidential Daily Brief titled "Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in US." It was the 36th PDB item briefed so far that year that related to Bin Ladin or al Qaeda, and the first devoted to the possibility of an attack in the United States.

The President's request resulted in the famous August 6 PDB:

Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US

Clandestine, foreign government, and media reports indicate Bin Ladin since 1997 has wanted to conduct terrorist attacks in the US. Bin Ladin implied in US television interviews in 1997 and 1998 that his followers would follow the example of World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef and "bring the fighting to America."

After US missile strikes on his base in Afghanistan in 1998, Bin Ladin told followers he wanted to retaliate in Washington, according to a [-] service.

An Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) operative told an [-] service at the same time that Bin Ladin was planning to exploit the oper-ative's access to the US to mount a terrorist strike.

The millennium plotting in Canada in 1999 may have been part of Bin Ladin's first serious attempt to implement a terrorist strike in the US. Convicted plotter Ahmed Ressam has told the FBI that he conceived the idea to attack Los Angeles International Airport himself, but that Bin Ladin lieutenant Abu Zubaydah encouraged him and helped facilitate the operation. Ressam also said that in 1998 Abu Zubaydah was planning his own US attack.

Ressam says Bin Ladin was aware of the Los Angeles operation.

Although Bin Ladin has not succeeded, his attacks against the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 demonstrate that he prepares operations years in advance and is not deterred by setbacks. Bin Ladin associates surveilled our Embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam as early as 1993, and some members of the Nairobi cell planning the bombings were arrested and deported in 1997.

Al-Qa'ida members-including some who are US citizens-have resided in or traveled to the US for years, and the group apparently maintains a support structure that could aid attacks. Two al-Qua' da members found guilty in the conspiracy to bomb our embassies in East Africa were US citizens, and a senior EIJ member lived in California in the mid-1990s.

A clandestine source said in 1998 that a Bin Ladin cell in New York was recruiting Muslim-American youth for attacks.

We have not been able to corroborate some of the more sensational threat reporting, such as that from a [-] service in 1998 saying that Bin Ladin wanted to hijack a US aircraft to gain the release of "Blind Shaykh" 'Umar 'Abd al-Rahman and other US-held extremists.

Nevertheless, FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.

The FBI is conducting approximately 70 full field investigations throughout the US that it considers Bin Ladin-related. CIA and the FBI are investigating a call to our Embassy in the UAE in May saying that a group of Bin Ladin supporters was in the US planning attacks with explosives.

The Commission concluded that:

Most of the intelligence community recognized in the summer of 2001 that the number and severity of threat reports were unprecedented. Many officials told us that they knew something terrible was planned, and they were desperate to stop it. Despite their large number, the threats received contained few specifics regarding time, place, method, or target. Most suggested that attacks were planned against targets overseas; others indicated threats against unspecified "U.S. interests." We cannot say for certain whether these reports, as dramatic as they were, related to the 9/11 attacks.

Although the Commission minimizes the effect, it is clear that -- even before 9/11 -- the intelligence community considered the "wall of seperation" to be a hindrance to our counter-terrorism efforst:

One of the Cole case agents read the lead with interest, and contacted "Jane" to obtain more information. "Jane" argued, however, that because the agent was designated a "criminal" FBI agent, not an intelligence FBI agent, the wall kept him from participating in any search for Mihdhar. In fact, she felt he had to destroy his copy of the lead because it contained NSA information from reports that included caveats ordering that the information not be shared without OIPR's permission. The agent asked "Jane" to get an opinion from the FBI's National Security Law Unit (NSLU) on whether he could open a criminal case on Mihdhar.

"Jane" sent an email to the Cole case agent explaining that according to the NSLU, the case could be opened only as an intelligence matter, and that if Mihdhar was found, only designated intelligence agents could conduct or even be present at any interview. She appears to have misunderstood the complex rules that could apply to this situation.

The FBI agent angrily responded:

Whatever has happened to this-someday someone will die-and wall or not-the public will not understand why we were not more effective and throwing every resource we had at certain "problems."

Let's hope the National Security Law Unit will stand behind their decisions then, especially since the biggest threat to us now, UBL, is getting the most "protection."

"Jane" replied that she was not making up the rules; she claimed that they were in the relevant manual and "ordered by the [FISA] Court and every office of the FBI is required to follow them including FBI NY."

It is now clear that everyone involved was confused about the rules governing the sharing and use of information gathered in intelligence channels. Because Mihdhar was being sought for his possible connection to or knowledge of the Cole bombing, he could be investigated or tracked under the existing Cole criminal case. No new criminal case was needed for the criminal agent to begin searching for Mihdhar. And as NSA had approved the passage of its information to the criminal agent, he could have conducted a search using all available information. As a result of this confusion, the criminal agents who were knowledgeable about al Qaeda and experienced with criminal investigative techniques, including finding suspects and possible criminal charges, were thus excluded from the search.

The Commission also discusses the investigation into the 9/11 pilots and Moussaoui. A CIA/FBI taskforce had had a lead on the pilots in early 2000, but lost them. Reacquiring them was not a priority, although some more information had been dug out by mid-2001. There was also the famous Pheonix memo:

As its author told investigators, the Phoenix memo was not an alert about suicide pilots. His worry was more about a Pan Am Flight 103 scenario in which explosives were placed on an aircraft. The memo's references to aviation training were broad, including aeronautical engineering. If the memo had been distributed in a timely fashion and its recommendations acted on promptly, we do not believe it would have uncovered the plot. It might well, however, have sensitized the FBI so that it might have taken the Moussaoui matter more seriously the next month.

No information about the flight school memo or the lost pilots made its way to any high-level official, except that Tenet was briefed about Moussaoui. Also, in early September, an alert was sent out about Moussaoui, but since he was in custody it was more of an example than a warning. There was no thought that Moussaoui might have been training for a 9/11 type hijacking until after 9/11.

Basically, if everything had gone perfectly, the government could conceivable have stopped (or at least postponed) 9/11 under both the Clinton and Bush administrations. Given the circumstances, however, and the information available, neither are any blame. SS's claim that the President "allowed" 9/11 to happen, that it could easily have been prevented, that George Tenet was screaming for something to be done or that the military should have been able to shoot down the planes that day are all nonsense.

SS's claim that the President "allowed" 9/11 to happen

I'm still waiting to hear what he did in response to the threats he was aware of.

that it could easily have been prevented

I never said that. Don't lie about me because it sounds good. Especially when it can be so easily checked.

that George Tenet was screaming for something to be done

"Tenet told us that in his world "the system was blinking red." By late July, Tenet said, it could not "get any worse." Not everyone was convinced. Some asked whether all these threats might just be deception. On June 30, the SEIB contained an article titled "Bin Ladin Threats Are Real." Yet Hadley told Tenet in July that Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz questioned the reporting. Perhaps Bin Ladin was trying to study U.S. reactions. Tenet replied that he had already addressed the Defense Department's questions on this point; the reporting was convincing. To give a sense of his anxiety at the time, one senior official in the Counterterrorist Center told us that he and a colleague were considering resigning in order to go public with their concerns."

or that the military should have been able to shoot down the planes that day are all nonsense.

I'm not blamning the military,; I'm not blaming NORAD; I'm not blaming the FAA. I'm blaming the guy they all answer to, the man who was warned repeatedly by the outgoing Administration on the gravity of the terrorist threat, the man who could have had Condi Rice collect investigative information from all sides of "the wall" but didn't, the man whose vice-president had a task force on terrorism that never even met, the man who could have ordered a review of U.S. air defense but didn't, the man who who could have ordered the shooting down of Flight 77 but didn't, the man who thought it more important to go into that classroom than to monitor the situation, the man who stayed there seven minutes after being told "America is under attack."

The man who didn't even try.

SS -

Your last statement sounds like bad GOP copy from early 1942, or even 1964. Too bad for you that GWB is as substantive a President (if not more so) than FDR.

Mr. Krause:

I went out of my way not to call you a liar. Don't make that mistake again.

SS - It's odd that a so-called "Social" scientist should be so fixated on one man's contribution to solving a problem. In a society of 300 million people, it's best to divide responsibilities among all 300 million -- it enables society to accomplish much more. If one many "tries" to do too much himself or to direct too much of what others do, it subtracts from what society can accomplish -- see Communism, History of, for empirical evidence.

When George Bush mobilized the bureaucracy to prepare a plan for attacking Al Qaeda, he was trying to do all the things that are clearly the President's responsibility. You have failed to show why the things he "didn't even try" to do are or should be the President's responsibility.

Mr. Cohen--

I went out of my way not to call you a liar.
Feel free to call me a liar. When I lie. Otherwise, you see, that would be a lie. But when someone represents me as saying things I did not say, that my statements specifically contradict, and when that information is available on the very same web page in comments one is allegedly replying to, that's a deliberate untruth.

pj--

You have failed to show why the things he "didn't even try" to do are or should be the President's responsibility.

Well, I guess we're into a more philosophic mode now. After all, the Presidential Oath talks about defending the Constitution, not the country or its citizens. And I'm no legal scholar, so I'm not even going to look for the history of the concept of defending the US. Maybe it has no legal standing, I don't know. So this one I will throw out to the audience: do any of you believe that the President doesn't have a responsibility to, to the best of his ability, defend the United States?

SS -

Are you one of those liberals who believe that Bush should have been omniscient from 1/20/2001 through 9/10/2001, then omnipotent from 9/11/2001 until about November 2001? (And then virtually moribund afterwards?)

Obviously, he is doing better than you prefer.

You don't happen to work for the CIA, do you?

To all:

I've reconsidered my response to Mr. Cohen. Things seem to have gotten a little personal here. That was not my intention, and is not how the great American conversation over issues is supposed to go. My apologies to Mr. Cohen for personalizing my remarks. Although I feel that in this case I am factually in the right, he does not have a record of misstating facts about the issues. So, I overstated.

His remark about not "mak(ing) that mistake again" does give me pause. As does his use of my surname. I don't use my name in these dialogues for a couple of reasons--but one surely is that I don't wish to be contacted outside of this blog. I've had that happen before (in a harassing manner from leftists, I'm sure you'll all be happy to know), and I don't like it. While I don't know what to make of Mr. Cohen's remarks, they certainly seem to hold some sort of portent.

So I'm out. I plan to make my big principled stands in this life over professional, not political issues, and I'm not going to let this situation take over any of that. Anyway, it's not my blog, and I can find plenty of conversation elsewhere.

It's been lovely; I've been pushed to dig deeper into some issues by all of you and enjoyed it thoroughly. I know you'll miss me like a horse misses flies--you'll try to shoo me and there'll be no one there.

Finally, an informational note: "Social Scientist" is an in-joke I share with some colleagues. I work in a field that is formally classified as a social science, but what I do deals with social phenomena not in the least. So there you are.

Au revoir,
Bill Krause

SS - Of course the President has a responsibility to defend the U.S. -- as do we all. Do you believe he had a responsibility to be flying one of the planes that scrambled on 9/11, or to be leading a Marine platoon in Fallujah? If not, then you acknowledge that Bush's responsibilities to defend the U.S. do not imply that every task in that defense are his.

The task of national defense is a social one, and as such it is vulnerable to all the challenges involved in the social discovery of problems/opportunities, the reaching of agreement about how to proceed, and the coordination of task execution. Your comments entirely neglect the social nature of the task, a neglect apparently motivated by a desire to pin blame on GW Bush.

Well, farewell, Bill. It's been frustrating debating with you because your arguments seem to depend on the rejection of certain practical realities, relating to how things actually get accomplished, that the rest of us take for granted and are unused to having to argue for. I'm glad you enjoyed it.

Mr. Krause:

I accept your apology and tender one of my own. I did not intend to be in any way threatening in using your surname. Rather, as your email address uses your name, I used it in my post to stress the importance I place on the matter. The second sentence was one of those instances in which awareness of an unintended possible interpretation come immediately to mind just after the "post" key is clicked.

I certainly did not intend to drive you off. You are welcome to stay and make your (incorrect) arguments. We welcome the sparring. We do try to keep personal insults to a minimum, which is the only way to continue to discuss opposing views of important matters.

As for 9/11, you're still wrong. You say that of President Bush that "[l]etting 9/11 happen was the smartest thing he ever did." I assume this is hyperbole because there is no evidence that the President was forewarned about the 9/11 attacks or chose to allow them to take place.

Could the President have done more? Absolutely, as could President Clinton. But the only real solution is to take the fight to the middle east. Before 9/11, neither Bush nor Clinton tried to do this. As Presidents can always get us to go to war, either one could taken out the Taliban and destroyed AQ's infrastructure preemptively. Neither, though, could have prevented 9/11 once the pilots were in the US (absent luck) and now the left would be arguing that our preemptive war in Afghanistan casued 9/11. "What if" history just isn't satisfying.

The other issue on which you are wrong is what was going on during the summer of '01. As you note, George Tenet was aware of lots of "chatter" indicating an imminent attack. The chatter did not identify the type or location of the attack. Tenet raised this chatter with the President continually in their near-daily briefings. As a result, the President specifically requested a briefing on AQ plans to attack within the US. That request resulted in the 8/6 PDB.

Nor did the administration do "nothing", as you say. Alerts were sent out to overseas military forces and bases, and to all US Ambassadors. A domestic alert was sent out to a number of agencies, including FAA. FAA reviewed the Massoui case and decided that it did not represent an imminent threat. Agents at FBI and CIA opened investigations into different portions of the 9/11 plot, including financing, logistics and pilot training, but their concerns never reached their superiors, nor were the different pieces of the puzzle put together.

The government, under both the Bush and Clinton administrations, did not cover itself with glory, here. It did react about as well as I expect it to.

Thank you David. I think I will hang around from time to time. But I'm not going to flog this topic any more right now--gotta make the doughnuts.

You say that of President Bush that "[l]etting 9/11 happen was the smartest thing he ever did." I assume this is hyperbole

You are correct, sir.

SS:

I was basing my comments on AF operations on my personal experience in another type of fighter--I might have been wrong in what I said, if so, I apologize.

However, best not to count your chickens. I emailed a buddy of mine tonight who was at Langley at the time with the pertinent questions. If the answers aren't classified, I will provide them, regardless of who they favor.

In case anyone is still listening:

I was correct about Langley having airplanes on alert, and flying with live missiles: No on both accounts.

I was wrong about the ANG, they did have armed aircraft on alert. The ND ANG was the first unit over DC, and the Otis ANG were first over NY.