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Thursday, August 31, 2006

This year, can we please remember that George W. Bush did nothing to prevent the 9/11 attacks?
Posted by Jill | 7:15 AM
For the last four anniversaries of the 9/11/01 attacks, George W. Bush has taken political advantage of the observances to remind us about his so-called war on terror. Perhaps, now that he is hovering at no more than 35-38% approval, we can observe the anniverssary by noting just how his Administration fell down on the job in the days leading up to the attacks.

Sidney Blumenthal:

Five years later, the Day of Remembrance for Sept. 11 should properly begin on Aug. 6 to recall the Presidential Daily Briefing that Bush received in 2001, titled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US," which he ignored, dismissing his CIA briefer: "Well, you've covered your ass now." Before then, the administration had shunted aside the terrorist issue as something tainted by association with Bill Clinton. Counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke was ignored and demoted, pushed off the National Security Council Principals Committee. Despite Clarke's urgent entreaties the Principals Committee discussed terrorism only once, deciding at Rumsfeld's behest not to fly Predator drones for surveillance over Osama bin Laden's camps in Afghanistan. Bush's final dismissal of the threat warning on Aug. 6 meant that the CIA and FBI and other agencies were under no pressure from above to coordinate or even to be on the alert for terrorist plots.

In the aftermath of the derelict approach before 9/11, incompetent bungling has been compounded. By now the history is all too sadly familiar: allowing bin Laden to escape at Tora Bora by failing to commit U.S. troops; draining personnel and resources from Afghanistan in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq; contempt for our alliances and disregard of world opinion; and the incredible accumulation of blunders in Iraq that have produced the present and ever-widening crisis, which has restored and sustained prestige for terrorism from Baghdad to London, constantly replenishing a potential reservoir of able and willing terrorists.

Each disaster of Bush's presidency triggers remembrance of another. Bush's neglectful behavior before Katrina recalls his studious indifference to terrorism on the eve of 9/11. His refusal to respond to the briefing by Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center, that the levees would likely be breached eerily repeated his administration's dismissive attitude toward Clarke's warnings and the Aug. 6 PDB on bin Laden. From 9/11 to Katrina, the pattern, we can now recall, is remarkably consistent.

Remembrance of Bush's fiascoes does not overshadow the reality that they are not sealed in the past but are continuing catastrophes. As new failures unfold, the old ones appear in their refracted light. Memories of Bush's damage acquire deeper meanings with each new calamity.


Why do Americans continue to put up with this level of incompetence?
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