reflectivepundit

"State of Denial" and 9/11

A lengthy excerpt from Woodward's "State of Denial" in today's Washington Post focuses on CIA Director George Tenet's assessment of a likely Al Qaeda attack in the months before 9/11and his inability to convince then-National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice and the White House to focus on the threat. According to Woodward, "Tenet had been losing sleep over the recent intelligence. There was no conclusive, smoking-gun intelligence, but there was such a huge volume of data that an intelligence officer's instinct strongly suggested that something was coming.He did not know when, where or how, but Tenet felt there was too much noise in the intelligence systems."

In oder to convince Ms. Rice of the seriousness nature of the threat, Tenet and Black asked for and got an urgent meeting to tell her that Al-Qaeda was going to attack at home or abroad. But according to Woodward,"Tenet and Black felt they were not getting though to Rice. She was polite, but they felt the brush-off

According to Woodward:

Afterward, Tenet looked back on the meeting with Rice as a lost opportunity to prevent or disrupt the attacks. Rice could have gotten through to Bush on the threat, Tenet thought, but she just didn't get it in time. He felt that he had done his job and been very direct about the threat, but that Rice had not moved quickly. He felt she was not organized and did not push people, as he tried to do at the CIA.

Black later said, "The only thing we didn't do was pull the trigger to the gun we were holding to her head."

These revelations do not support the perennial partisan claims and public perceptions that Republicans--whether in the White House or in Congress--are better in dealing with terrorism and counterterrorism than are Democrats.

Nor does the history of anti-American terrorism of the last 25 years.

“State of Denial” and the Politics of Counterterrorist Policies

By Brigitte L. Nacos

What are we to make of American politics and its supposed transparency, when it takes the metamorphosis of a celebrity journalist to draw intense national attention to decision-making based on wishful pseudo-reality rather than on the reality with respect to Iraq? What are we to make of American politics and its power sharing arrangement, when it takes a new bestselling book to reveal what congressional committees and the 9/11 commission should have known a long time ago? Let me just mention the so far most glaring revelation:  According to the Washington Post, Bob Woodward reveals in “State of Denial” that “then-CIA Director George J. Tenet and his counterterrorism chief, J. Cofer Black, grew so concerned in the summer of 2001 about a possible al-Qaeda attack that they drove straight to the White House to get high-level attention.” Although Tenet and Black managed to pay then-National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice a “surprise visit” to make an impression, “the meeting on July 10, 2001, left Tenet and Black frustrated and feeling brushed off… Rice, they thought, did not seem to feel the same sense of urgency about the threat and was content to wait for an ongoing policy review.” Problem is that neither congressional committees nor the 9/11 Commission learned of the July meeting as they investigated pre-9/11 counterterrorism efforts and the lack thereof. Instead, the omission of the July meeting allowed administration officials to stick to their claim that they had not ignored warnings about Al Qaeda’s plans as expressed forcefully by Richard A. Clarke, the White House counterterrorism advisor who had stayed on for part of the Bush presidency.

“Super-Sleuth” Woodward Jumps the Administration Ship

By Brigitte L. Nacos

Today, the New York Times in a front page article and CBS News in a preview of an interview on Sunday’s “60 Minutes” scooped the Washington Post with a story on the forthcoming book by the assistant managing editor of the Post. Howard Kurtz at the Post who was left to use the Times and CBS News as sources in his Media Notes column, wrote, “Well, supersleuth Bob Woodward has himself been scooped. Poised to unveil the contents of his new book on Sunday with a triple rollout--"60 Minutes" interview and excerpts in The Washington Post and Newsweek--Woodward woke up this morning to see the highlights splattered on the front page of the New York Times.” But being a good company man and colleague, Kurtz concluded, “Is there anything untoward about it? Not at all. The Post has done the same thing to other publications and authors.” If I were the media critic of the Post, I would have taken the “supersleuth” to task. And if I were the editor of that newspaper, I would not tolerate an assistant managing editor being scooped on his own work.By mid-morning, the Post had an article to its web site that focused on former White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card urging President Bush to fire Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

Facts Must Inform Counterterrorism II

By Brigitte L. Nacos

I can’t help but address an issue that was raised by Washington Post's David Ignatius in his latest column, “The Big Question Democrats Are Ducking.” He is right to complain that most Democrats remain content to criticize the administration’s handling of Iraq but do not put forth suggestions for alternative policies. As Ignatius sees it, “This should be the Democrats' moment, if they can translate the national anger over Iraq into a coherent strategy for that country. But with few exceptions, the Democrats are mostly ducking the hard question of what to do next. They act as if all those America-hating terrorists will evaporate back into the sands of Anbar province if the Uniter States pulls out its troops. Alas, that is not the case. That is the problem with Iraq--it is not an easy mistake to fix.

Indeed, it is not an easy mistake to correct. But unless the White House and others in the administration stop fudging the obvious evidence attesting to the fiasco surrounding the Iraq war and deny the obvious, the debate is about the consequences of failed policies—not about correcting them. Moreover, as long as the Democrats are out of power, their best laid plans would not matter a bit in the highly partisan atmosphere of today’s Washington. It is the party in power that needs to address the “big question” about the future of our Iraq policy because only the Republican president and the Republican majority in both houses of Congress have the power to make such decisions.

Unless voters decide otherwise in November. And for that reason, yes, Democrats need to present us with alternatives.

Facts and Truth Must Inform Counterterrorism

By Brigitte L. Nacos

In their analysis of the controversial National Intelligence Estimate in the Washington Post, Karen DeYoung and Walter Pincus write, “In describing Iraq as "the 'cause celebre' for jihadists," the document judges that real and perceived insurgent successes there will "inspire more fighters to continue the struggle elsewhere," while losses would have the opposite effect.” While President Bush denied yesterday that the Iraq situation increased the threat of terrorism, the intelligence community drew obviously different conclusions. As Paul R. Pillar, former CIA national intelligence officer for the Near East and South Asia, told the Post, “This [the problem pinpointed in the intelligence document] is very much mainstream stuff. There are no surprises."

 

Media Professionals On Media Bias

By Brigitte L. Nacos

The rhetorical battle between Fox News anchor Chris Wallace and former President Bill Clinton last weekend was the stuff the news media strives on. But as I read about the clash in the Washington Post’s “Media Notes” column by Howard Kurtz, I found another aspect far more interesting, namely, the way Kurtz refers to and deals with the perennial issue of whether there is conservative or liberal media bias—or whether the media are fair and balanced. In the context of the Wallace-Clinton quarrel, Kurtz writes, “Fox, which employs a number of high profile conservative hosts, maintains that its reporting is straightforward but is viewed by many liberals and other critics as leaning toward the right.” Careful not to take a stand beyond saying that Fox News does have a number of conservative hosts, Kurtz points to the networks’ official position before mentioning the different views of “liberals” and “other critics,” whose ideological preferences are not revealed.

 

Jerry Falwell Tops Hugo Chavez

By Brigitte L. Nacos

After Venezuela’s President characterized George W. Bush as the devil during his speech at the United Nations, the Reverend Jerry Falwell topped Hugo Chavez’s disgusting performance during a meeting of Christian conservatives. As the Los Angeles Times reported, Falwell told fellow pastors and activists with respect to the 2008 presidential election that evangelical Christians fear Hillary Clinton more than the devil. He said, “I certainly hope that Hillary is the candidate. She has $300 million so far. But I hope she’s the candidate. Because nothing will energize my [constituency] like Hillary Clinton. If Lucifer ran, he wouldn’t.”

While Falwell did not demonize Rudolph Giuiliani,New York’s former mayor, the evangelical leader told conference participants nevertheless that moderates like Giuliani must not win the presidential nomination of the Republican Party. Conservative evangelical Christians have no reason to worry because Falwell assured them that God is a Republican and that God will preserve the Republican majority in Congress.

I just wonder what the Reverend Falwell would tell his constituents about God’s party loyalty, if Republicans would lose their majority in one or both houses of Congress this year and/or the White House two years later.

P.S. According to the Washington Post, Jerry Falwell acknowledged that he made the "totally tongue-in-cheek" Hillary remarks. But the Reverend Barry Lynn said, "I don't know why Jerry Falwell always has to drag politics into the gutter." And he added, "Maybe the devil made him do it."

 

Iraq and the Recruitment of Terrorists

By Brigitte L. Nacos

In the September issue of The Atlantic Monthly, the magazine’s national correspondent James Fallows suggests that it is time for the United States to declare victory since the U.S “is succeeding in its struggle against terrorism.” When he wrote his article, Fallows was obviously not aware of a National Intelligence Estimate that in April 2006 pinpointed the war in Iraq as “a primary recruitment vehicle for violent Islamic extremists, motivating a new generation of potential terrorists around the world whose numbers may be increasing faster than the United States and its allies can reduce the threat…” He may have written a different piece. While President Bush and others in his administration underline the successes in the “war on terrorism,” the intelligence community paints a far less rosy picture. As the Washington Post reported today, “the battlefronts intelligence analysts depict are far more impenetrable and difficult, if not impossible, to combat with the standard tools of warfare.”

Political Language Matters: the “L” Word for Liberal

By Brigitte L. Nacos

In an article about the end of the Republican intraparty squabble about the treatment of detained terrorist suspects, Charles Babington and Jonathan Weisman write in today’s Washington Post, “Until the breakthrough was announced Thursday, Democrats had let Republicans fight among themselves... Now that McCain and his fellow dissidents have joined hands with Bush, it will be difficult to attack the deal, Democrats acknowledged.”

Why would it be difficult for Democrats to finally fight against legislation that would continue to give the administration’s pro-torture officials free hand in the treatment of detainees? According to the article, Democrats would jeopardize chances to win some of the contested races in November in that “for Democrats to oppose the compromise, which Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has embraced, would subject them to charges of being soft on terrorism.”  

Whether Individuals or Countries: The Rich Become Richer

By Brigitte L. Nacos

The same day Forbes magazine revealed that you had to be a billionaire to make this year’s list of the 400 richest Americans and that the number and the assets of super-rich people in this country increased once again, I learned from listening to an interview with Nobel Prize Winner Joseph Stiglitz that the income of regular Americans did not increase in the last five years. Earlier news reports pointed to growing poverty right here at home. But in his conversation with Tom Ashbrock in NPR’s program “On Point”  Stiglitz was mostly concerned with the negative consequences of globalization and said that “inequality [in incomes] is the most serious problem of globalization.” As I listened to his remarks, it became crystal clear: Just as there are big winners and big losers in the domestic economic arena, the same is true for the larger setting in that globalization has benefited some countries and regions but left behind others. I am neither an economist nor an expert on free trade/globalization regulations but the issues addressed by Stiglitz should be of interest to everyone reasonably attentive to the pressing problems of our time. We are all interconnected now. What happens--or does not happen--in some far-away places will touch our lives sooner or later.

While agreeing with Stiglitz on some points Zanny Minton Beddoes of The Economist was far more optimistic about the present globalization regimes’ ability to incrementally correct the lop-sided consequences of globalization. Stiglitz is actually not against but very much in favor of globalization provided “it is managed well.”

One wonders, whether there is a chance that a Nobel Prize Winner or perhaps activists on behalf of real people left behind can bring about changes that would correct what may be—or may not be--unintended consequences of globalization.