Analyzing the Testimony

In testimony before the 9/11 commission yesterday, top officials from the Clinton and Bush Administrations testified about their counterterrorism policies. The facts that emerged -- both through testimony and two preliminary reports released by the commission -- largely confirm the charges made by the Bush Administration's former chief counterterrorism advisor, Richard Clarke. Though buried beneath an avalanche of doublespeak and word parsing, yesterday's hearing revealed that the Bush Administration subordinated the threat of terrorism prior to 9/11 and, even immediately after the attacks, continued to focus obsessively on Iraq.

The Administration's talking point on its pre-9/11 policy, repeated by Secretary of State Colin Powell before the committee yesterday, was "we wanted to move beyond the rollback policy of containment, criminal prosecution and limited retaliation for specific terrorist attacks. We wanted to destroy al Qaeda." National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan have made nearly identical statements. The language is undoubtedly designed to give the impression that top officials in the Bush Administration wanted to be more aggressive than Richard Clarke, who presented the Administration plans to aggressively target al Qaeda. But the Administration's actual plan, according to a report released by the 9/11 commission yesterday, was quite meek.

After eight months of intermittent deliberations, subordinate officials in the Bush Administration's National Security Council ("the Deputies") determined that the appropriate first step was " dispatching an envoy to give the Taliban an opportunity to expel bin Laden and his organization." Only if that failed would "pressure...be applied on the Taliban" diplomatically and the Administration would begin to encourage "anti-Taliban attack[s] on al Qaeda bases." Only if both of those strategies failed would the Administration consider "more direct action." According to Stephen Hadley, the Deputy National Security Adviser, "the timeframe for this strategy was about three years." In other words, had 9/11 not focused the Administration's attention on the problem, the Bush team wouldn't have taken aggressive action.

The White House yesterday claimed it was preparing to apply serious pressure to the Taliban in 2001. But that contrasts with its plan in May of 2001 to give "$43 million in drought aid to Afghanistan after the Taliban began a campaign against poppy growers." As the May 29, 2001 edition of Newsday noted, the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan "are a decidedly odd choice for an outright gift of $43 million from the Bush Administration. This is the same government against which the United Nation imposes sanctions, at the behest of the United States, for refusing to turn over the terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden."

Despite all evidence pointing to al Qaeda and bin Laden as behind the 9/11 attacks, just as Dick Clarke asserted, the Administration immediately discussed invading Iraq after 9/11. Powell testified that on September 15, 2001, "Iraq was discussed, and Secretary Wolfowitz raised the issue of whether or not Iraq should be considered for action during this time." According to Powell, the President said, "first things first...we'll start with Afghanistan." Powell could not rule out the possibility that Wolfowitz suggested attacking Iraq "instead of Afghanistan."

Condoleezza Rice, despite discussing the issue repeatedly on all five morning talk shows, refuses to testify publicly before the committee about the Administration's terrorism policy. She claims that presidential advisers can't appear before Congress because of separation-of-powers concerns. But her argument does not withstand scrutiny. First, the 9/11 commission is not a congressional committee, but an independent committee, signed into law by the stroke of the President's pen. But even setting that aside, according to commissioner Richard Ben-Veniste, a April 5, 2002 Congressional Research Service report shows there are "many precedents involving presidential advisers" testifying before congressional committees. The report reveals that Lloyd Cutler, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Samuel Berger and even American Progress CEO John Podesta appeared before congressional committees while serving as advisors to Presidents.