"The terrorists are coming, the terrorists are coming."

So declared Gary Hart to the Bush Administration. Richard Clarke wasn't the only expert to sound the alarm pre-9/11, and in this interview with David Talbot of Salon.com, Hart tells how Warren Rudman and Hart explicitly warned Rumsfeld, Powell, and Rice, "that a devastating terrorist attack on America was imminent and called for the immediate creation of a Cabinet-level national security agency." But the report was ignored by Bush at Cheney's behest.

So, have things improved in our bureaucratic defense since the horrific events on that sunny Tuesday morning? Hart says they haven't:

 And two and a half years after 9/11, Hart observes, no government official has been held responsible for the disastrous security failures of that day. The Bush White House, he charges, is locked in a strange and delicate dance with intelligence officials, maneuvering to place blame on the CIA but fearing if it does so too blatantly, the Bush team's own failings will be exposed.

So Hart/Rudman came up with a report and a detailed plan and handed it to Rice who gave it to Cheney who put it where??

Hart again warned the Administration 5 effing days prior to 11 September, 2001. But they had done virtually nothing up to that point and so it was too late.

Ignore Clarke, ignore Hart/Rudman, ignore agents in the field. Yeah it sounds like Operation Ignore to me.