Deborah Orin has an additional column on Clinton-era policies and terrorism:
PRESIDENT Bill Clinton’s team ignored dire warnings that its approach to terrorism was “very dangerous” and could have “deadly results,” according to a blistering memo just obtained by The Post.
Then-Manhattan U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White wrote the memo as she pleaded in vain with Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick to tear down the wall between intelligence and prosecutors, a wall that went beyond legal requirements.
Looking back after 9/11, the memo makes for eerie reading — because White’s team foresaw, years in advance, that the Clinton-era wall would make it tougher to stop mass murder.
“This is not an area where it is safe or prudent to build unnecessary walls or to compartmentalize our knowledge of any possible players, plans or activities,” wrote White, herself a Clinton appointee.
Again, while all the second-guessing is interesting (and goodness knows the Democrats would be trumpeting this were roles reversed), what is more interesting is why this is all coming out right now. Part of an August roll-out becuase of the slow news cycle? Part of a Plame/Rove pushabck? Or is the information just now becoming available?
ppGaz
I think it’s a great idea to study and analyze the shortcomings of administrations, especially when they’re out of office for going on five years.
I think it’s an even greater idea to do that do the administration that’s in control now, though.
Oh wait …. that’s called Hating America.
Sorry, my bad.
Blue Neponset
Colonel Frank Borman explained to the Senate committee investigating the Apollo 1 fire that the ’cause’ of the Apollo 1 tragedy was a ‘lack of imagination’. The 9/11 tragedy, Pearl Harbor, and the Tet Offensive also share that common cause.
Does anyone, including the most red meat Republican, think Bill Clinton wouldn’t have done anything he could to stop 9/11 from happening?
If any administration had thought 19 zealots were capable of crashing jumbo jets into the WTC, the Pentagon and a field in PA I am sure such an adminstration would do everything it its power to stop that from happening.
I am all for partisan politics, but can we at least be grown up about it? There is so much blame to go around regarding 9/11 that no one’s hands are clean.
Joe Albanese
Orin says:
Lets put this into a little perspective. Perhaps I am wrong, but:
Clinton increased our anti-terrorism budget significantly while he was president. The Bush adminstration (John Ashcroft) tried to cut our anti-terror budget.
Clinton, from all accounts, warned Bush during the transition that the biggest challenge he was to face was terrorism and specifically Al Qaeda. Bush did absolutely nothing until 911.
Clinton, when warned of a possible impending terror attack (Millenium attack) he convenyed all his top people to “shake the trees” and that attack was thwarted. Bush recieved a memo (while on his August vacation) stating that “Bin Laden determined to strike in the USA” and he didn’t discuss it with anyone.. not Tenant.. .not Aschcroft.
Dick Cheney was put in charge of the adminstration’s anti-terror strategy group but they never even held one meeting prior to 911 even though Tenant and Clark were running around with their “hair on fire.”
So I am a bit confused as well why this is all coming out now. Do the Bush supporters REALLY want a comparison of the actions the Clinton and Bush adminstration with regards to terrorism?
We call all agree with hindsight that more should have been done. There is plenty of blame that can go around, but this glee I see in right wingnuttia about the supposed failings of the Clinton adminstraion is a bit bizarre to me considering what their WAR PRESIDENT did prior to the attack on 911. Come to think of it, I’m not that impressed with what he did DURING the attack. Can anyone imagine Clinton sitting their while our nation was under attack for the first time since Pearl Harbor, reading MY PET GOAT?
erez
You are kidding, right? This is exactly like the increased security threat level prior to the election… a political ploy which attempts to make Bush look better. Remember the Clinton Administration’s initial memo to the Bush administration encouraging the creation of a Department for Homeland Security, which was conveniently ignored?
Steve
Wow! A blistering memo “just obtained” by the Post!!!!!!
It has been common knowledge for a long time that Mary Jo White, who was unquestionably a first-rate prosecutor, was uncomfortable with the “wall” and recommended on several occasions that revisions be made. See, for example, this Free Republic post dated April 30, 2004.
Controlling every branch of the government does make it harder for partisan hacks like Orin to find targets for their hit pieces. But with the President’s approval ratings continuing to drop, at least Bill Clinton is always there as a reliable target.
DougJ
This president doesn’t govern by poll numbers. And if Clinton is a convenient target, he made himself one by leaving the country open to terrorist attacks. He also left the country a crappy economy and a horrible moral legacy, but I won’t go into that here.
Anderson
Steve Coll in “Ghost Wars” is pretty harsh on Clinton. It wasn’t the best issue on which to have a lawyer as President, is one way of putting it.
Clinton’s insistence on having ironclad proof regarding Osama, and guarantees against collateral damage in taking him out, were in large part due to the Lewinsky affair and his damaged Presidency, for which IMHO Clinton and the Republicans were equally to blame—Clinton shouldn’t have lied about the blowjobs, and the Republicans shouldn’t have turned it into an impeachment circus.
Clinton just could not afford to go after Osama, nail him along with an unspecified number of women and children and guests at his compound, and then have it blow up in his face a la the Sudan bombing.
Pug
Let’s all just admit Clinton didn’t do everything he should have to prevent terrorism. Neither did Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, G.H.W. Bush or G.W. Bush.
If you want to blame Clinton, that’s fine. He’s been blamed for everything from the murder of Vince Foster to smuggling coke into Mena airport to selling our nuclear weapons to the Chinese. There’s nothing the right doesn’t blame him for, except for the good things that happened while he was president.
This is kind of a nostalgia thing for Deborah Orin. I bet she feels really good today. There’s nothing that can make her day like a good old Clinton bashing article. Plus, she probably thinks it helps her boy G.W. get off the hook.
Meanwhile, today in Iraq . . .
Jim
“This president doesn’t govern by poll numbers.”
That’s right, that is why we are going to have Social Security reform. That’s how come we have a monstrous medicare benefit that is going to bite us. That’s why many of our troops will be coming home before the mid-term elections.
croatoan
Bush also blew off the January 2001 report of the U.S. Commission on National Security (Hart/Rudman Commission), which warned that a devastating terrorist attack on America was imminent. He ignored the report for four months, then said Dick Cheney would be leading a new (and redundant) look at terrorism, and Cheney never did anything.
ppGaz
Well, he took a long hard look at the situation on the ground over there and announced that the insurgency was in its last throes.
Behind “Bring it On”, possibly the most collossally stupid thing said by an administration official in modern history.
Once the Last Throes announcement was made, the right found it particularly difficult to talk about the insurgency with any focus. As near as I can tell, the official viewpoint now is that the insurgency is, uh, annoying and irrelevant. If we can just get that darned constitution signed, doggone it!
jg
What ever happened to the color alert? Is terrorism no longer a concern? Are they so sure their base will just laugh off what the left says that they don’t even pretend it wasn’t a political ploy by maybe elevating at least once since the election?
Stormy70
The 9/11 commission was a farce. It was a CYA for the government, regardless of party affiliation.
Bob
Stormy70: At last we agree on something!
aaronpacy
What I find interesting ..I frequently have conversations with people about the lack of planning for the war in Iraq. The multitude of screw-ups…I don’t think I need to list them all. But Bush supporters will always pull out the “You can’t plan for everything in a war and it’s all hindsight and monday morning quarterbacking anyway.” Yet……we CAN’T do anything about screw-ups from PAST administrations. But we CAN with CURRENT administrations…well..at least we could. Back in November. And that is it. Republicans realize that they have a real fight on their hands in ’06 and ’08 if the Iraq war situation doesn’t improve. (Which IMO is based on their own uncertainty about our direction there.) So they are starting now with the “Democrats and Liberals CAN’T KEEP YOU SAFE! They let 9/11 happen! Only us tough bad-ass conservatives can keep the boogie man away!”
Doug Purdie
To actually answer John’s question, my first guess is that this is just coming out now because people were reluctant to publicize the activities of an Army special ops. group. From all that I’ve read, Col. Shaffer has taken an enormous career risk in going on the record.
It also appears as though no government agency or agent authorized Able Danger (or at least none that would admit to it). Maybe the Army tried to keep it a secret, maybe because they created the ops. group illegally (?)