Commission warned Bush
But White House passed on recommendations by a bipartisan, Defense department-ordered commission on domestic terrorism.

By Jake Tapper

Sept. 12, 2001 | WASHINGTON -- They went to great pains not to sound as though they were telling the president "We told you so."

But on Wednesday, two former senators, the bipartisan co-chairs of a Defense Department-chartered commission on national security, spoke with something between frustration and regret about how White House officials failed to embrace any of the recommendations to prevent acts of domestic terrorism delivered earlier this year.

Bush administration officials told former Sens. Gary Hart, D-Colo., and Warren Rudman, R-N.H., that they preferred instead to put aside the recommendations issued in the January report by the U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century. Instead, the White House announced in May that it would have Vice President Dick Cheney study the potential problem of domestic terrorism -- which the bipartisan group had already spent two and a half years studying -- while assigning responsibility for dealing with the issue to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, headed by former Bush campaign manager Joe Allbaugh.

The Hart-Rudman Commission had specifically recommended that the issue of terrorism was such a threat it needed far more than FEMA's attention.

Before the White House decided to go in its own direction, Congress seemed to be taking the commission's suggestions seriously, according to Hart and Rudman. "Frankly, the White House shut it down," Hart says. "The president said 'Please wait, we're going to turn this over to the vice president. We believe FEMA is competent to coordinate this effort.' And so Congress moved on to other things, like tax cuts and the issue of the day."

"We predicted it," Hart says of Tuesday's horrific events. "We said Americans will likely die on American soil, possibly in large numbers -- that's a quote (from the commission's Phase One Report) from the fall of 1999."

On Tuesday, Hart says, as he sat watching TV coverage of the attacks, he experienced not just feelings of shock and horror, but also frustration. "I sat tearing my hair out," says the former two-term senator. "And still am."

Rudman generally agrees with Hart's assessment, but adds: "That's not to say that the administration was obstructing."

"They wanted to try something else, they wanted to put more responsibility with FEMA," Rudman says. "But they didn't get a chance to do very much" before terrorists struck on Tuesday.

The White House referred an inquiry to the National Security Council, which did not return a call for comment.

The bipartisan 14-member panel was put together in 1998 by then-President Bill Clinton and then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., to make sweeping strategic recommendations on how the United States could ensure its security in the 21st century.

In its Jan. 31 report, seven Democrats and seven Republicans unanimously approved 50 recommendations. Many of them addressed the point that, in the words of the commission's executive summary, "the combination of unconventional weapons proliferation with the persistence of international terrorism will end the relative invulnerability of the U.S. homeland to catastrophic attack."

"A direct attack against American citizens on American soil is likely over the next quarter century," according to the report.

The commission recommended the formation of a Cabinet-level position to combat terrorism. The proposed National Homeland Security Agency director would have "responsibility for planning, coordinating, and integrating various U.S. government activities involved in homeland security," according to the commission's executive summary.

Other commission recommendations include having the proposed National Homeland Security Agency assume responsibilities now held by other agencies -- border patrol from the Justice Department, Coast Guard from the Transportation Department, customs from the Treasury Department, the National Domestic Preparedness Office from the FBI, cyber-security from the FBI and the Commerce Department. Additionally, the NHSA would take over FEMA, and let the "National Security Advisor and NSC staff return to their traditional role of coordinating national security activities and resist the temptation to become policymakers or operators."

The commission was supposed to disband after issuing the report Jan. 31, but Hart and the other commission members got a six-month extension to lobby for their recommendations. Hart says he spent 90 minutes with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and an hour with Secretary of State Colin Powell lobbying for the White House to devote more attention to the imminent dangers of terrorism and their specific, detailed recommendations for a major change in the way the federal government approaches terrorism. He and Rudman briefed National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice on the commission's findings.

For a time, the commission seemed to be on a roll.

On April 3, before the Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Terrorism and Technology, Hart sounded a call of alarm, saying that an "urgent" need existed for a new national security strategy, with an emphasis on intelligence gathering.

"Good intelligence is the key to preventing attacks on the homeland," Hart said, arguing that the commission "urges that homeland security become one of the intelligence community's most important missions." The nation needed to embrace "homeland security as a primary national security mission." The Defense Department, for instance, "has placed its highest priority on preparing for major theater war" where it "should pay far more attention to the homeland security mission." Homeland security would be the main purpose of beefed-up National Guard units throughout the country.

A new strategy, new organizations like the National Homeland Security Agency -- which would pointedly "not be heavily centered in the Washington, D.C. area" -- would be formed to fulfill this mission, as well with the fallout should that mission fail. As the U.S. is now, the Phase III report stated, "its structures and strategies are fragmented and inadequate." Diplomacy was to be refocused on intelligence sharing about terrorist groups. Allies were to have their military, intelligence and law enforcement agencies work more closely with ours. Border security was to be beefed up.

More resources needed to be devoted to the new mission. "The Customs Service, the Border Patrol, and the Coast Guard are all on the verge of being overwhelmed by the mismatch between their growing duties and their mostly static resources," the report stated. Intelligence needed to focus not only on electronic surveillance but a renewed emphasis on human surveillance -- informants and spies -- "especially on terrorist groups covertly supported by states." As the threat was imminent, Congress and the president were urged to "start right away on implementing the recommendations put forth here."

Congress seemed interested in enacting many of the commission's recommendations. "We had a very good response from the Hill," Rudman says.

In March, Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, introduced the National Homeland Security Agency Act. Other members of Congress -- Rep. Wayne Gilchrest, R-Md., John Kyl, R-Ariz., Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. -- talked about the issue, and these three and others began drafting legislation to enact some of the recommendations into law.

But in May, Bush announced his plan almost as if the Hart-Rudman Commission never existed, as if it hadn't spent millions of dollars, "consulting with experts, visiting 25 countries worldwide, really deliberating long and hard," as Hart describes it. Bush said in a statement that "numerous federal departments and agencies have programs to deal with the consequences of a potential use of a chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear weapon in the United States. But to maximize their effectiveness, these efforts need to be seamlessly integrated, harmonious and comprehensive." That, according to the president, should be done through FEMA, headed by Allbaugh, formerly Bush's gubernatorial chief of staff.

Bush also directed Cheney -- a man with a full plate, including supervision of the administration's energy plans and its dealings with Congress -- to supervise the development of a national counter-terrorism plan. Bush announced that Cheney and Allbaugh would review the issues and have recommendations for him by Oct. 1. The commission's report was seemingly put on the shelf.

Just last Thursday, Hart spoke with Rice again. "I told her that I and the others on the commission would do whatever we could to work with the vice president to move on this," Hart said. "She said she would pass on the message."

On Tuesday, Hart says he spent much of his time on the phone with the commission's executive director, Gen. Charles G. Boyd. "We agreed the thing we should not do is say, 'We told you so,'" Hart says. "And that's not what I'm trying to do here. Our focus needs to be: What do we do now?"

Of course, as a former senator, Hart well knows what happens to the recommendations of blue-chip panels. But he says he thought that the gravity of the issue -- and the comprehensiveness of the commission's task -- would prevent its reports from being ignored. After all, when then-Secretary of Defense William Cohen signed the charter for the 21st Century National Security Strategy Study, he charged its members to engage in "the most comprehensive security analysis" since the groundbreaking National Security Act of 1947, which created the National Security Council, the Central Intelligence Agency and the Office of Secretary of Defense, among other organizations.

Neither Hart nor Rudman claim that their recommendations, if enacted, would have necessarily prevented Tuesday's tragedy. "Had they adopted every recommendation we had put forward at that time I don't think it would have changed what happened," Rudman says. "There wasn't enough time to enact everything. But certainly I would hope they pay more attention now."

"Could this have been prevented?" Hart asks. "The answer is, 'We'll never know.' Possibly not." It was a struggle to convince President Clinton of the need for such a commission, Hart says. He urged Clinton to address this problem in '94 and '95, but Clinton didn't act until 1998, prompted by politics. "He saw Gingrich was about to do it, so he moved to collaborate," Hart says. "Seven years had gone by since the end of the Cold War. It could have been much sooner."

Rudman said that he "would not be critical of them [the Bush administration] this early because the bottom line is, a lot has to be done." The commission handed down its recommendations just eight and a half months ago, he said, and they'll take years to fully enact.

"On the other hand," Rudman said, "if two years go by and the same thing happens again, shame on everybody.

"I'm not pointing fingers," Rudman said. "I just want to see some results." He may get his wish. On Wednesday, Thornberry renewed his call for a National Homeland Security Agency. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., the assistant majority leader, called for the formation of a federal counter-terrorism czar.

Three days ago, if asked to predict what the first major foreign terrorist attack on America soil would involve, Hart says he would have guessed small nuclear warheads simultaneously unleashed on three American cities. But, he says, "there wasn't doubt in anyone's mind on that commission" that something horrific would happen "probably sooner rather than later. We just didn't know how."

In addition to the Bush administration, Hart has another group that he wishes had paid the commission's suggestions more heed. "The national media didn't pay attention," Hart says. One senior reporter from a well-known publication told one of Hart's fellow commissioners, "This isn't important, none of this is ever going to happen," Hart says. "That's a direct quote."

Hart points out that while the New York Times mentioned the commission in a Wednesday story with the sub-headline "Years of Unheeded Alarms," that story was the first serious mention the Times itself had ever given the commission. The Times did not cover the commission's report in January, nor did it cover Hart's testimony in April, he points out. "We're in an age where we don't want to deal with serious issues, we want to deal with little boys pitching baseballs who might be 14 instead of 12."

Hart says he just shook his head when he saw a former Clinton administration Cabinet official on TV Tuesday calling for the formation of a commission to study the best way to combat terrorism. "If a former Cabinet officer didn't know, how could the average man on the street? I do hope the American people understand that somebody was paying attention."

In his April 3 testimony, Hart noted that "the prospect of mass casualty terrorism on American soil is growing sharply. That is because the will to terrorism and the ways to perpetrate it are proliferating and merging. We believe that, over the next quarter century, this danger will be one of the most difficult national security challenges facing the United States -- and the one we are least prepared to address." He urgently described the need for better human intelligence and not just electronic intelligence, "especially on terrorist groups covertly supported by states."

He's far from happy to have been proven correct. Both Hart and Rudman say with grim confidence that Tuesday's attacks are just the beginning. Maybe now, Rudman says, Congress, the White House, the media and the American people will realize how serious they were about their January report.

"Human nature is prevalent in government as well," Rudman says. "We tend not to do what we ought to do until we get hit between the eyes."

-- Anonymous, September 14, 2001

Answers

Cherri,

Bush didn't ignore it, he didn't give the priority that -- in hindsight (don't miss that, hindsight is ALWAYS 20/20!) -- it deserved.

If Bin Ladin, for whatever reason, had decided that he'd make his attack sometime next year, who knows? We might have had some protection in place.

Then again, we might NOT have. The sad fact is, air travelers would have complained about invasive searches of their baggage and persons (the ONLY immediately obvious thing that could have stopped these guys).

They would have complained: "Why are you doing this?" The media would have had a field day: "Bush is paranoid!"

The WHOLE NATION has been asleep for years. We assumed that the demise of the Soviet Union meant that we didn't need a slick CIA, new weapons, or a well-trained military. Hey, after all, the Chinee aren't a serious threat, right?

(I myself have said that ... [sigh])

The fact is, some HORRIBLE mistakes have been made over the PAST TWENTY YEARS. For example, the Clinton administration put in place an insane rule that the CIA couldn't use any foreign national who had a criminal record or a "record of human rights abuses," for example. Clinton's people DECIMATED the CIA's ability to forewarn against stuff like what happened Tuesday. Some conservatives are squalling that Clinton had a chance to "get" Bin Ladin while he was in office.

Maybe. Maybe not.

And you know what? IT DOESN'T MATTER NOW. You can't change the past, you can only learn from it.

Bush Sr. made mistakes; Reagan, Carter and Ford before them made mistakes.

I think it's time to let bygones be bygones.

IT DOESN'T MATTER NOW.We need to put the past behind us and focus on the task at hand.

To be blunt with you, whether its Democrats dragging up every mistake the Repubs have made or Repubs dragging up all of Clinton's errors, to me, it's all just pointless party politics.

AND I AM TIRED OF IT. Dead, sick, bone-weary tired.

We need to *LEARN* from the mistakes that we've made, yes (and I'm not denying that some of them have been WHOPPERS). But rehashing what Dubya has done wrong in the seven months that he's been in office, rehashing what Clinton did or didn't do, parsing every decision made by Bush Sr, yadda yadda ... except FOR learning from these mistakes, is pointless.

I watched that memorial service today and saw pure, unadulterated grief on the faces of Bushes Jr. *and* Sr., Clinton, Gore and every one else in that room. I have to believe that they are at least human enough to wish that they'd done some things differently in the past.

But you can't change the past.

Let me repeat that: YOU CAN'T CHANGE THE PAST.

One more time: You Can't Change The Past.

All you can do is learn from the past and move on to make a better future. I believe we're going to do that now.

We need to focus on the task at hand. This fingerpointing and sniping doesn't solve anything.

-- Anonymous, September 14, 2001

But since the topic of this post is very directly finger-pointing at GW Bush, I might like to point out a thing or three in the interest of simple equity and fairness.

The article says Hart "urged Clinton to address this problem in '94 and '95". From 1994 until January 2001, the end of Clinton's 2nd term, is a span of more than six years.

Bush has been in office less than 8 months.

Do the math. It isn't difficult.

-- Anonymous, September 15, 2001

Speaking September 13 with White House correspondents, Rice said,

"We've always known that something like this could happen on American soil. We've all had it as a nightmare, but you couldn't watch those planes go into the World Trade Towers, you couldn't go out to the Pentagon like we did yesterday and see the side of the Pentagon cratered, you couldn't go through the moments when we didn't know how many planes were still in the air, what else was next on the list, and not be transformed by it."

White House Report, Sept. 14: NSC's Rice on Terrorist Attacks

I doubt the American People ever believed Tuesday was possible. I know for a fact if they did know what Condi Rice seems to think was common knowledge, they would not have allowed Tuesday to ever happen.

We pay a hefty sum for security. Obviously we are being dicked bigtime and it is clear who is responsible--hint-it ain't whining Joe Public no matter what the "twin-buttcheeks for Bush" on this thread say to the contrary. No matter how they attempt to rewrite his History or the prior turds back as far as 1981.

No Lars, we have no "missiles on the White House" or even the balls if we did. What we have is plenty of Hot Air and $100 toilet seats.

-- Anonymous, September 15, 2001

Doc,

That's not so. The Secret Service has Stinger capability. But see what I said to Lars elsewhere. It's a terrible choice.

It MAY eventually come out that the SS fired a Stinger at the DC plane and that it lost control and went into the Pentagon. I doubt it, though.

It is also a FACT that, shortly after the attacks occurred, Aegis ships WERE moved into place and fighters were scrambled over most major cities.

Actually, the government responded as quickly as I've ever seen it move. This surprise attack caught everyone with their pants down, but they responded with commendable speed.

That doesn't stop the armchair quarterbacks from critiquing everything they did, of course. But I really don't see what else they could have done.

-- Anonymous, September 15, 2001

once again(why do I continue? note to self)

"We've always known that something like this could happen on American soil".

Look, I do not know about you Poole, but if *I* knew what Rice claims THEY knew, I doubt I would be doing anything but trying to make it impossible.

Planes+Full Tanks=Flying Bombs. So what do THEY do? nothing. Not that it matters in your dualistic delusional state Poole, but THEY includes Klinton and Al Gore, getting it yet? good.

30 BILLION DOLLARS a year and these masterminds cannot even track 20 Azam JIHAD Joneses? Course not, since THEY have gutted any meaning to what it means to be an American long ago and it makes no difference if one is here to work a 12-9 emergencyroom gig or train to pilot commercial jets being used as flying bombs. Who is checking? Hell I bet we the taxpayer paid to train and house these "immigrants" as well. Course anyone raising a stink is simarially tarred and feathered by types like CPR and his violins from Ellis Island and TJefferson as a racist pig.

More than anything Tuesday, America learned conclusively just how bad we are being ripped off. We spend 30 BILLION a cycle on intelligiance alone, and the freaking PENTAGON themselves are clueless. What chance does Main Street America have?

--In God we Trust--, damn straight, all else is money down a rathole.

Again, if YOU knew what Rice did, what would you be doing? Hoping? rolling the dice? we'll they lost. I am sure they really give a crap. Rice will probably see a promotion.

-- Anonymous, September 16, 2001

Doc, why do you call anyone who disagrees with your rantings "delusional"? That's pretty stupid, to be honest about it. It sure doesn't win any converts to your cause (whatever that may be).

You're getting more like TB2k Goldbug Andy every day.

-- Anonymous, September 17, 2001

Simple, most of the opposition actually thinks I am a Liberal.

Lets add this up shall we.

Doc thought the correct response to the China "Spy plane" exercise was to tell China to Fuck-Off.

Doc thinks Bush's proposed granting of 3 Million Illegals not only ridiculous, but Treasonist.

Doc from hours after this Attack, was calling for direct military retaliation. Knowing full well, old Afghan women in carts would likely be killed in any military action. Knowing full well many CELLS still exist here and "could" do more evil acts if we did what is right.

My crime was months of advocating the value of the People's VOTE, over some contrived USSC opinion in a Presidential Election. For this I get the dualistic wrath of people to blind to see I am not what they think.

-- Anonymous, September 17, 2001