Kerrey And Condi

From Glenn, we get the following exchange from the 9/11 Commission hearing today:

Rice's response to Bob Kerrey (transcript -- scroll down) is amusing:

KERREY: Why didn't we swat that fly?

RICE: I believe that there's a question of whether or not you respond in a tactical sense or whether you respond in a strategic sense; whether or not you decide that you're going to respond to every attack with minimal use of military force and go after every -- on a kind of tit-for-tat basis.

By the way, in that memo, Dick Clarke talks about not doing this tit-for-tat, doing this on the time of our choosing.

RICE: I'm aware, Mr. Kerrey, of a speech that you gave at that time that said that perhaps the best thing that we could do to respond to the Cole and to the memories was to do something about the threat of Saddam Hussein.

That's a strategic view...

(APPLAUSE)

And we took a strategic view. We didn't take a tactical view. I mean, it was really -- quite frankly, I was blown away when I read the speech, because it's a brilliant speech. It talks about really...

(LAUGHTER)

... an asymmetric...

KERREY: I presume you read it in the last few days?

RICE: Oh no, I read it quite a bit before that. It's an asymmetric approach.

We may be stumped. A lesser candidate for the speech in question would be Kerrey's prepared statement to a Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on Iraq in March 2001.

However, we lean towards this "Panel Discussion on Economic And National Security After September 11th" from the November 14, 2001 Concord Coalition Economic Patriots Dinner. The panelists were Warren B. Rudman, Sam Nunn, J. Robert Kerrey, Robert Rubin, and Paul Volcker, although reading the discussion quickly might leave one suspecting the presence of Glenn Reynolds, Steven Den Beste, and Andrew Sullivan. My only hesitation in saying "this is the speech!" is due to the fact that it is Mr. Rudman who refers to asymmetric threats in this discussion, rather than Mr. Kerrey. However, he is undeniably brilliant. We'll geta bit of flavor with his thoughts about how to improve airline security:

But in terms of hijacking the plane, they’d be better off simply saying: We’re going to lock the pilot up, and the new rules say you don’t turn the cockpit over under any circumstances at all. And then, you know, rather than taking away our metal knives and giving us a plastic knife, just ask the passengers to volunteer to put down anybody who wants to get up and hijack the plane. They’d be better off putting a hard rubber mallet in every “barf bag” in the plane -- (laughter) -- and let us take care of the damn problem.

(Applause.)

And on Iraq:

MR. PETERSON: Let’s move to another subject. (Laughter.)

There’s a lot of talk about how we ought to take on Iraq, and that we think they’ve got biological weapons, and we think that they have them weaponized, and they may have nuclear materials. But what’s less clear to me is what we mean exactly by “taking on Iraq,” particularly if they don't do anything overt; particularly if we don’t demonstrate that they were involved in September 11th.

So can you give me some scenarios that you think are sensible, that put some meat on the bones of how we’re going to take on Iraq? What do we mean by this?

MR. KERREY: Invade Iraq and liberate 24 million Iraqis. That’s what I’d do.

MR. RUDMAN: Well I tell you Pete -- (Laughter and applause.)

MR. PETERSON: Bob, you’re just filled with ambiguity tonight.

MR. KERREY: Well, I just --

(Laughter.)

-- look, I mean we spend at least $2 billion a year on a military strategy right now. We’ve got a no-fly zone in the north, a no-fly zone in the south, and guess what? bin Laden’s first attack on Khobar Towers in 1996 occurred because we had military forces in Saudi Arabia after Desert Storm.

So they’re there to contain Saddam Hussein. We have a containment policy in place, we’ve had it in place since 1991, and, you know, again, just sort of measured by the success -- it has reduced Iraq’s capability and it’s reduced the size of the threat but, as long as he’s organizing and loose in our backfield we’ve got problems.

He had thoughts about the Arab street and public opinion:

MR. PETERSON: ...The number that I found stunning -- this was a series of focus interviews that was allegedly done by a very respected organization -- they said 85 percent of the Saudi males, in answer to a series of questions, were supportive of bin Laden.

A stunning percentage of the women were supportive of bin Laden. Now, if you want to visualize a scenario that will entertain you to no end, imagine bin Laden moving in --

MR. KERREY: They said the same thing in Kabul three days ago and they’re all shaving their beards today. (Laughter.) I’m not sure you can count on that opinion poll being very reliable.

(Laughter.)

And his big finish:

MR. KERREY: I don’t disagree with that, Sam. I think sequencing it is right and God knows I would not volunteer to be a diplomat in that effort, obviously from the way I’ve talked, but --

(Laughter.)

-- I was there in 1996 and 1998 and the year 2000 when we were attacked at Khobar Towers and Dar Es Salaam, and Nairobi, Kenya, and the Cole. And we said we’ve got to have a military response, and their answer was: the Muslim world is going to get pissed. Well, tough. You declared war on us, for God sakes.

And so if there’s a threat against the United States I don’t disagree with the need to sequence. I don’t disagree with anything you’ve said, but bottom line is, if we judge that Saddam Hussein is a threat to the people in the United States of America then I’d say all bets are off. Because we express this undying concern for the instability we would create; if we responded after we -- we knew who did Khobar Towers, we knew who did the East African embassy bombings, and we knew who did the Cole.

But we were worried about Muslim sensibilities and instability and blah-blah, blah-blah-blah, and then all of a sudden we get 5,000 of our people killed, and the world changes. And I’d say thank God it has and I say don’t forget it, because you’ll be in trouble if you don’t.

MR. NUNN: Bob if you have --

(Applause.)

That's my guess as to what Condi Rice called "brilliant". Here's my idea.

UPDATE: Matt Yglesias is very funny on Kerrey.

Comments

[Tom Bowler]

In today's WSJ Mr. Kerrey had this to say:

"Mr. Clarke's views on Iraq notwithstanding, after 9/11 we could not afford either to run the risk that Saddam Hussein would be deterred by our military efforts to contain him or that these military deployments would become attractive targets for further acts of terrorism. I supported President Bush's efforts to persuade the United Nations Security Council to change a 10-year-old resolution that authorized force to contain Saddam Hussein to one that authorized force to replace his dictatorship. And I believe the president did the right thing to press ahead even without the Security Council's support."

Comes as a surprise to me considering his confrontational tone toward "Dr. Clarke" in the hearing today.

[TM]

Hmm, very consistent of him. Matt Yglesias has a very funny description of Kerrey, which I would repeatif I had even a minute.

Apropros of nothing, but some links on Clinton's fo-po vision, Dec 2000

General stuff, including some Taliban
http://usembassy.state.gov/islamabad/wwwhpa00.html

The speech, Dec 100, 2000 Kearney, Nebraska
http://usembassy.state.gov/islamabad/wwwh00121101.html

[bushgirlsgonewild]

My summary of Condi's testimony: 233 excuses.

[Media Hound]

"bushgirlsgonewild" writes:

  "My summary of Condi's testimony: 233 excuses."

Hmmm, one wonders how many "excuses" Clinton came
up with in his secret testimony today -- 2,920 excuses
for 8 years of inaction...

[Ben]

Look, the only person who NEEDS an excuse is Usama bin Ladan. He and his organization is the ones that perpetrated 9-11. And obviously neither administration did enough to stop him, as in fact the attack happened.

But many of the things we are now doing to prevent another 9-11 could not happen without 9-11. If Ashcroft had come up with the loosening of restrictions about sharing information between the CIA nd the FBI, back in January of 2001, many of us would be up in arms and rightly upset about it. Now we see the necessity, the fact that the government cannot do its job without our intelligence and law enforcement agencies sharing data. But before 9-11, there was no popular nor political will in either party to take such steps.

It should also be pointed out that the hijackers were trained here in the US. They came to the US and were welcomed here. We are a pretty decent and tolerant and friendly people. And these bastards used our hospitality and our friendliness against us. Heck, if prior to 9-11 anyone had suggested that maybe we don't want to give flight training to Arabs because they might be terrorists, he would have been called a racist or worse.

[Patrick R. Sullivan]

Speaking of being called a racist, why isn't Kerrey being hammered for his patronizing of Condi, essentially telling her she's a credit to her race.

And then, after wasting 2-3 minutes of his allotted 10 criticizing the Bush Administration over the recent unpleasantness in Iraq, he starts whining when she starts to answer his questions.

[TexasToast]

I would think Kerrey's support for the iraq war would make him more credible to you - not less. Besides, isn't THIS the important Kerrey stuff?

"KERREY: Actually it won't be a question.

In the spirit of further declassification, this is what the August 6th memo said to the president: that the FBI indicates patterns of suspicious activity in the United States consistent with preparations for hijacking.

That's the language of the memo that was briefed to the president on the 6th of August.

RICE: And that was checked out and steps were taken through FAA circulars to warn of hijackings.

But when you cannot tell people where a hijacking might occur, under what circumstances -- I can tell you that I think the best antidote to what happened in that regard would have been many years before to think about what you could do for instance to harden cockpits.

That would have made a difference. We weren't going to harden cockpits in the three months that we had a threat spike."

The question is not about hardening cockpits - its about FBI warnings of a hijacking threat in a PDB entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S"

How does a "systemic problem" explain away a rather specific warning in an atmosphere of heightened alert? Why did this warning not go down the chain with a bit more emphasis?

[TM]

Why did this warning not go down the chain with a bit more emphasis?

The party line is, the PDB also said the FBI was working on this;

the other party's line is, why so passive in the White House?

I can't think of a great reason for her *not* to call folks from the FBI and the CIA together for a chat. The idea that she was waiting, in a disciplined fashion, for problems to be brought to her doesn't really turn me on.

Not that I am feeling any sympathy for Clarke, mind you...

[jt007]

You are conveniently ignoring another statement made by Dr. Rice in which she noted that directives regarding this specific threat of highjackings were given to 70 field offices of the FBI. Jamie Gorelick told Dr. Rice that there was no evidence of these directives having been issued, however, I understand that the White House is going to provide the committee with appropriate evidence. Therefore, Rice and the NSC did pass the information down. I don't think she should be blamed for an operational failure much farther down the ladder anynore than Clinton should be blamed for allowing Mohammed Atta and Marwan Al Shehi to enter the U.S. in the summer of 2000, and the INS's failure to keep tabs on their whereabouts. Obviously the bureaucracy and inefficiency of the FBI, FAA, INS, CIA, etc. are culpable at least as much as the policy makers in the Clinton and Bush Administrations.

Also, it amazes me that Gorelick, a former Deputy Attorney General in the Clinton administration with responsibility for the law enforcement end of Clinton's counter terrorism strategy, is on the 9/11 commission. I think that her previous position constitutes a serious conflict of interest.

[TM]

Re: Gorelick - funny you should mention that.

And I don't think Ben-Veniste was really trying to educate the public when he tried to have Condi Rice give him the title of the Aug 6 PDB without describing its contents.

Maybe that was payback for Slade Groton's question to Clarke - roughly, "would your Jan plan have foiled 9/11", "No", "Thanks". Clarke has argued that a summertime fire-drill might have foiled 9/11, a point that got lost in thatexchange.