Tomorrow's CW Yesterday, OR, "If I Were An Attack Dem"

With the news coming out about the FBI's role in the summer of 2001, as we looked for signs of al Qaeda in the US, I am becoming convinced that the final update to this post will be very close to the next CW, perhaps even before I can transform it into a new post of its own.

My gist is that Rice and Bush had an unreasonably hands-off management style in the summer of 2001, and I will reprise it with minor revisions below, mainly so that my buddies amongst the lying, crooked RAM can get me back on the rails:

BIG FINISH: I reject this lefty myth-making (in a comparable situation of increased intelligence chatter in December 1999, Clinton excelled!) as both false and irrelevant - when did Republicans accept Clinton as the Gold Standard for the vigourous pursuit of anything other than... oh, never mind. Set aside the precedent set by past Presidents, and ask yourself, what should a responsible leader have done in the summer of 2001 when pondering the intelligence situation at hand?

By three separate measures, the Bush-Rice approach falls short. First, Republicans have complained for years about a slow, unimaginative, inflexible Federal bureaucracy. That being so, why was it OK in 2001 for Ms. Rice to let the 'crats grind through their hoops in the same old, same old way?

Secondly, Ms. Rice described in her testimony a hierarchical management scheme, where she sat with an open door waiting for her subordinates to present the problems needing her or the President's attention. Why would this be appropriate in the first six months of an administration? There had been turnover (Louis Freeh left the FBI in June, and was replaced by an acting head), a lot of the new team had not been confirmed, and it may have been a bit early to assume that the bureaucracy could be trusted to sift and properly percolate its priorities in the new Bush style. There is also a chicken-egg problem with the possibly petulant, recently demoted Richard Clarke, lead counter-terror guru: he wanted a Cabinet meeting to look for actionable intelligence, but he may have worried that Ms. Rice wanted actionable intelligence to justify a Cabinet meeting; if he goes in to request a meeting "on spec", might it have been construed (he could have been worrying) as embittered nostalgia for his glory days? Ms. Rice should have been alert to this.

Finally, from a different perspective, a sensible management strategy involves the minimization of maximum regret. In bureaucratese, the relevant acronym is "CYA", and the tactic is to take the obvious steps that can minimize ghastly embarrassment later. In the context of the heavy summertime intelligence chatter, the CYA approach would have been for Ms. Rice to request a meeting of the heads of the FBI and the CIA. If the meeting wastes their time and nothing happens later, well, she tried, and no harm done; if they strike gold, she is a hero. Not complicated.

MORE: When did John O'Neill, FBI Counter-terror head, leave the FBI? [July 2001]. He was in the private sector at the WTC when he died there on 9/11. Depending on timing, his absence would have been one more reason for Ms. Rice to see a gap in the FBI coverage.

And yes, one might think I would have even two minutes to answer this. Sorry, we have a time management failure and a PC failure simultaneously.

MORE: But we are battling on! John O'Neill left the FBI in July 2001. All these simultaneous transitions are bad for Condi.

Comments

[Patrick R. Sullivan]

As usual, Mr. Drum is factually challenged:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2001901197_ressam12m.html

--------quote---------
Clarke book has errors about arrest of Ahmed Ressam

Was it "shaking trees" or shaking knees that led to the arrest of convicted millennium terrorist Ahmed Ressam?

As former White House counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke tells it in his book "Against All Enemies," an international alert to be on the lookout for terrorists played a role in Ressam's capture at a Port Angeles ferry terminal in December 1999, his car loaded with bomb-making material.

[snip]

Disputing Clarke's claim, Rice testified customs agents "weren't actually on alert."

At least one of the agents who helped apprehend Ressam sides with Rice's version of events.

Moreover, others involved in the Ressam case say Clarke's book contains factual errors and wrongly implies national-security officials knew of Ressam's plan to set a bomb at Los Angeles International Airport long before they actually did.

[snip]

According to a former customs agent who was involved, Clarke's version, laid out in one chapter of his book, wrongly implies they were on "heightened alert" and somehow looking for terrorists.

"No," was the terse reply of Michael Chapman, one of the customs agents who arrested Ressam, when asked if he was aware of a security alert.

"We were on no more alert than we're always on. That is a matter of public record," said Chapman, now a Clallam County commissioner.

[snip]

agents thought Ressam was smuggling drugs when they opened the trunk of his rental car and found bags of white powder buried in the spare-tire well. Only after finding several plastic black boxes, containing watches wired to circuit boards, did anyone suspect a bomb.

[Customs Agent] Dean has said repeatedly she singled Ressam out for a closer look because he was nervous, fumbling and sweating. Ressam has since told agents he was sick, and federal sources have confirmed Ressam had apparently gotten malaria while at terrorist-training camps in Afghanistan.

Clarke's version of that night contains other errors. Some of them are minor. But one implies national-security officials knew more about Ressam's plans than they could have at the time:

[snip]

Clarke wrote that agents had found "explosives and a map of the Los Angeles International Airport" in the car, implying the threat to the airport was known almost immediately.

There was no map in the car. A map of Greater Los Angeles was found days later in Ressam's apartment in Montreal. Nobody had a clue for nearly 11 months that Los Angeles was a target.

Circles scrawled on the map around three L.A.-area airports weren't found until October 2000, after the document had been turned over to the FBI. It wasn't until Ressam began cooperating in May 2001 that his actual target was known for sure.

In fact, in the weeks after Ressam's capture, officials in Seattle were so unsure about his actual target that then-Mayor Paul Schell canceled the city's popular New Year's Eve celebration at Seattle Center, thinking the Space Needle could be a target.

• Clarke reported Canadians had somehow "missed" the existence of Ressam's cell of radical Algerian Muslims in Montreal and that, after Ressam's arrest, the Canadian government cooperated.

According to testimony at Ressam's trial and interviews with Canadian intelligence officials, Ressam and the cell in Montreal had been under surveillance for at least two years before Ressam's arrest. But the Canadian Security Intelligence Service never told anyone.

U.S. prosecutors have complained bitterly about Canada's foot-dragging as the Ressam case proceeded. Canadian prosecutors blocked U.S. access to at least one crucial witness — an Algerian who gave Ressam a gun and talked about blowing up Jews in Montreal.

Indeed, the U.S. came within hours of dropping charges against Ressam on the eve of his March 2001 trial because the Canadian government attempted to withdraw the witnesses.

----------endquote---------

[TM]

I have to say I am pretty disappointed by Kevin on this one. He has put up lots of posts since that one, so he is not off for the weekend; I am quite certain he is aware of the weak factual foundation for his post; and I don't see any update to it or any kind of follow-up.

Which is fine - as long as Dems cling to the fallacious Clinton comparison, they are playing a (possibly) strong hand very badly. And it is reassuring, in some repsects, to know that folks on the left won't even listen to lying, crooked Reps like me - it means the current post gets a free pass.

[HH]

You mean John, not Paul (or George or Ringo).

[TM]

Thanks. Brainlock - I once knew a John O'Neill, and could never see him at the FBI.

I'm going to fix it quietly to enhance the cryptic nature of these comments.

[Paul Zrimsek]

The mistake is understandable. Counter-terrorism is probably just one of the programs Paul O'Neill was trying to run by remote control, at the expense of his actual job at the Treasury.

[bushgirlsgonewild]

HOW ABOUT A PRESIDENT THAT WORKS FULL TIME?
NO WONDER BUSH DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT THE TERRORISTS, HE'S NEVER AT WORK:
Prior to Sept. 11, 2001, The Manchester Guardian calculated that Mr. Bush, in his first seven months of office spent 42 percent of his time on holiday, "a whopping 54 days at his Texas ranch, 38 days at the presidential retreat at Camp David and four more at his parents' place in Kennebunkport, Maine."

That changed when the job became fundamentally more serious after the terrorist attacks. But Mr. Bush still rests, although his month-long retreat of August 2001 – the longest presidential vacation in 32 years – is no longer politically prudent while the war on terrorism is being waged.

IF I MISSED THAT MUCH WORK, I'D BE FIRED, AND SO SHOULD MR. BUSH!

[TM]

Hmm, the BGGW didn't look look so wild yesterday.

[Patrick R. Sullivan]

John O'Neill left the FBI to take a job that paid twice what he was making in government. Richard Clarke wanted to move into a cybersecurity position, and recommended O'Neill for his counterterrorism spot, but O'Neill said no.

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?020114fa_FACT1