Jolie Rouge

What We Seem To Have Forgotten

Former President Bill Clinton was interviewed in private by the Commission in early April. Had I been on the Commission, I would have asked him about the following events as described in my E-Letter dated May 24, 2001 (better skip this part if you are a big Clinton fan):


There were other terrorist attacks against the US overseas which were admittedly the work of Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. The Khobar Towers in June 1996; the US embassies in Nairobi and Tanzania in August 1998; and the USS Cole in October 2000. Hundreds were killed including dozens of US citizens and service men and women. Still there was no major overhaul of national security or our intelligence agencies. We did bomb an aspirin factory in Sudan and a deserted al Qaeda camp in Afghanistan in 1998 at the height of the Monica Lewinski scandal.


Blaming Bush & Advancing Their Careers

The Democrats on the Commission clearly want to lay the blame for 9-11 on the Bush administration. Clinton would get a “pass” if they have their way. Even Commission chairman Thomas Keen – who is a Republican – seems willing to play along. He was one of the first to say publicly that he believes 9-11 could have been prevented.

I believe it would have been next to impossible for the Bush administration to have prevented 9-11. Yet from what we read, the final report from the Commission (which is already being drafted before all the witnesses are heard) may indeed lay much of the blame on President Bush and his advisors.

Dare we look at some of the motivations behind certain of these 9-11 commissioners? Yes, we do. Former Senator Bob Kerrey has been perhaps the most vocal and fiery member of the Commission. Rumor has it that Kerrey is on the short list of possible VP running mates for John Kerry (“Kerry/Kerrey” – wouldn’t that be interesting), or if not, possibly Secretary of State in a John Kerry cabinet.

Richard Ben-Veniste is a long-time power broker in Washington, along the lines of Vernon Jordan during the Clinton years. Ben-Veniste was, among other things, a Special Prosecutor and chief of the Watergate Task Force back in the 1970s. He was also chief counsel for the Senate Whitewater Committee. He could be positioning for a general counsel spot in a Kerry White House.

And Jamie Gorelick? Presumably, she would love to be Attorney General in a Kerry administration.

The point is, all of the Democrats on the Commission have conflicts of interest and/or strong motivations to see Bush defeated by Kerry in November. Maybe this explains some of their behaviors and actions while supposedly being non-partisan.


Richard Clarke – The Most Damning Evidence?

Richard Clarke’s testimony before the 9-11 Commission is cited as being perhaps the most damning evidence of the Bush administration’s lack of concern about national security and a terrorist attack. Though his book seems to go further in blaming the Bush administration than he did under oath, it was still clear that Clarke expected Bush to do in eight months what he himself had failed to do in his long career as the nation’s counter-terrorism czar.

However, the liberal press failed to mention how Clarke’s 9-11 testimony (not to mention his book) directly contradicted his comments during an August 2002 press conference. Perhaps Clarke has provided the most damning evidence of all, but not of Bush’s complacency. His evidence helps to prove that most of those who have been most critical of the Bush Administration's handling of the threat of a terrorist attack have definite ulterior motives, as I have discussed above. Mr. Clarke held his tongue on any criticism of Bush until an election year in which his expose' was to be published. Remarkable timing, wouldn't you say?


Conclusions :

As I have written before, the Democrats and the liberal media are in an all-out effort to see that Bush is not re-elected. The politicization of the 9-11 Commission, sadly, is little more than a last-ditch effort to bring Bush down. As a result, most of the rhetoric you hear coming from this Commission is much ado about nothing. It is more about defeating Bush at all costs and about advancing their personal agendas.

I predict that the work of this Commission is going to be disregarded as a flawed piece of political propaganda, rather than a constructive review of the intelligence process. They have forgotten their mandate to review the events that led up to the 9-11 attacks and to recommend how security and the intelligence community can be improved to prevent future attacks.

The truth is, there have been security failures and lapses in all recent administrations. I would argue that the most egregious failures occurred on Bill Clinton’s watch, but we will never hear that admitted (or even hinted) by the 9-11 Commission or the media.

As noted earlier, I don’t believe the Bush administration could have prevented the 9-11 attacks. Certainly, there was intelligence that was not shared or didn’t make it into the right hands. Even if it had, it is doubtful that most of the hijackers could have been stopped.

This also raises the question of whether or not lawmakers and the American people would have tolerated – in advance - the extreme measures that would have been necessary to prevent the 9-11 tragedy. But I will leave that question, and discussion of same, for another time.

The good news is, a great deal has already been done to increase our security, largely at the initiative of President Bush. I have no doubt that the terrorists would have already struck us again if they could. Rather than playing the blame game, the 9-11 Commission should carry out its mandate and provide the administration and our intelligence agencies the information they need.

Very best regards,
Gary D. Halbert

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