The Quadrangle

Issue date: 3/2/05 Section: Perspectives

The horrible events that occurred on 9/11 might have been prevented

A recent declassified memo shows the White House was warned about the threat posed by the al Qaeda network five days after George W. Bush took office. The Jan. 25, 2001, memo was sent to then National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, from Richard Clarke, who was the National Coordinator for Counterterrorism at the time.

"As we noted in our briefings for you, al Qida is not some narrow, little terrorist issue that needs to be included in broader regional policy," Clarke wrote. "Rather, several of our regional policies need to address centrally the transnational challenge to the US and our interests posed by the al Qida network."

In testimony given to the 9/11 Commission last year, Rice claimed that she never received any specific warning of an attack by the terrorist network headed by Osama bin Laden. In a March 22, 2004, op-ed for The Washington Post, Rice said, "No al Qaeda plan was turned over to the new administration."

"I believe the Bush administration in the first eight months considered terrorism an important issue, but not an urgent issue," Clarke said last May. "Though I continued to say it was an urgent problem, I don't think it was ever treated that way."

A previously undisclosed report from the 9/11 Commission also reports that federal aviation officials reviewed several intelligence memos that warned about al Qaeda, some of which specifically discussed airline hijackings and suicide operations.

Aviation officials were "lulled into a false sense of security," and "intelligence that indicated a real and growing threat leading up to 9/11 did not stimulate significant increases in security procedures," the commission disclosed.

The full, classified, version of the report has been blocked from public release by the Bush administration for more than five months. I wonder why? Maybe it had something to do with that presidential election last November.

Former members of the commission, along with victims' families, open-government advocates and leading Democrats have called on the administration to release the entire report. A declassified version filled with numerous deletions was given to the National Archives two weeks ago.

In his memo to Rice, Clarke warned that al Qaeda was an "active, organized, major force," that used a distorted version of Islam in their attempts to "drive the US out of the Muslim world, forcing the withdrawal of our military and economic presence in countries from Morocco to Indonesia." He also said the terrorist network wanted to "replace moderate, modern, western regimes in Muslim countries with theocracies modeled along the lines of the Taliban."

Continued...

Page 1 of 2 next >

Article Tools