...and I know I owe Lori that meme, but I'm reading The Commission and I can't put it down....it's a fascinating dissection of the 9/11 Commission. It's as exciting as any spy novel and shocking in what it revels about the level of cover up by so many different agencies in Washington. The author makes bureaucracy riveting.
I highly recommend The Commission, especially if you still have any concerns about which party is better able to lead the war on terror. This book makes it pretty clear that W wasn't anywhere near ready for a terrorist attack on American soil and was completely incompetent in the months before the attack.
Not to mention the months after the attack.
Posted by: Lisa K. | February 20, 2008 at 08:55 AM
I don't know if any president could have anticipated what happened on 9/11. Delays in congressional appointments and staff turnovers all make continuity in intelligence between administrations a difficult thing. I'm not excusing the administration, but I just really think that no matter who had been president, 9/11 would have been a challenge.
Posted by: Lori | February 20, 2008 at 08:34 PM
Good point, Lori. And Richard Clark for all his pointing fingers at Condi and the President agrees that it probably could not have been stopped, but he does believe that they never "got" the urgency of bin Laden and if they were less focused on North Korea, Iran and the former Soviet block threats, the scope of the attacks could have been limited.
The biggest problem? The current administration's unwillingness to be transparent, to post mortem the situation so that we could learn and improve on our security. They were too afraid to be exposed. From the beginning they played politics, obstructed the commission and made it difficult to really gather information.
Posted by: Melissa | February 21, 2008 at 07:20 AM