The
Center for American Progress has more:
- The Administration has defended its negligence in the face of pre-9/11 terror warnings by claiming it set up a counter-terrorism task force in May of 2001 - but the task force never actually met.
Source: White House
- The Administration is simultaneously claiming that it never downgraded counter-terrorism at the same time it is trying to discredit Richard Clarke by noting that the White House demoted his counterterrorism office from the Cabinet level position it occupied under the previous Administration.
Source: CNN
- The Administration is denying Richard Clarke's assertion that Iraq planning took place immediately on 9/11, despite previous reports corroborating this account.
Source: CBS News
Source: ABC News
- The Administration tried to downgrade and slash for counter-terrorism before 9/11 - a significant departure from the previous Administration who labeled counterterrorism a "Tier One" priority in its strategic plan, and who increased the counterterrorism budget by 13.6% 1999, 7.1% in 2000 and 22.7% in 2001.
Source: Center for American Progress
Tom Schaller
has more over at the Gadflyer.
So we now know that, within the first 12 days of the Bush Administration (or even sooner, during the presidential transition), the following occurred:
1. The departing Clinton national security team warned the Bush folks, with great emphasis, about the fact that Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda would be the most pressing terrorist threat facing the country. This fact has been reported for some time, and will be reiterated by Clinton officials when they testify before the 9/11 Commission;
2. An urgent appeal made by Richard Clarke (a terrorism expert from the Clinton, Bush41 and Reagan Administrations) during the first week of the new Bush Administration to convene a top-level meeting about Al Qaeda was ignored until April. At that point, a lower-level meeting was finally convened, at which Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz mocked Clarke's concerns; and, finally
3. The detailed recommendations of the Hart-Rudman, bi-partisan terrorism commission (whose members included Newt Gingrich), were submitted to the Bush Administration on its 12th day in office (January 31, 2001). Despite several years and millions of taxpayer-funded dollars spent investigating terrorism (and recommending, most notably, the formation of a Homeland Security Department), the Bushies decided to create instead another, redundant Dick Cheney-led terrorism task force to study the question some more, which never met.
But despite the evidence, both from news reports and the White House's own documents, the
administration line today is that Clarke is a "disgruntled employee" and his accusations are all "political". If Clarke's word is all we had to go in, then the charges might stick. But fact is the documentation is not favorable to the administration's claims, nor are their attempts to stonewall the 9-11 commission.