At war: What We Know - controversy over intelligence information regarding September 11th 2001 terrorist attacks - Brief Article

National Review, June 17, 2002

For years, the prize for tabloid headline zip and overstatement was held by the New York Daily News: FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD. This May, that paper was passed by the New York Post: BUSH KNEW. The president, in other words, knew before September 11 that such an event was coming.

Democrats had a field day with the most sensational tidbit, that Bush had been given a briefing in August that warned that al-Qaeda might attempt a hijacking. Sen. Clinton took the Post headline to the well of the Senate. House minority leader Richard Gephardt, flashing back to Watergate, said "We need to know what people knew, and when they knew it." (We need to know where Dick Gephardt acquired such feeble rhetorical habits, and why he acquired them.) But first prize went to Joe Lockhart, who said that the administration's initial post-9/11 professions of surprise "took parsing to a brand new level. They were very precise [in what they said], but [they] trampled the spirit of our language." Mr. Lockhart, it must be remembered, was the Diogenes of the president who wondered what the meaning of "is" was.

Cooler heads noted that presidents do not pore over satellite photos with magnifying glasses, but rely on the information of the experts who work for them, and that the August briefing was not in fact that specific. Did our crime-fighting and intelligence agencies serve him ill? This was the charge of two FBI agents. Coleen Rowley, in the Minneapolis office -- which was investigating Zacarias Moussaoui, now thought to be the 20th hijacker -- leaked a bitter 13-page letter addressed to director Robert S. Mueller. She charged that FBI headquarters in Washington "inexplicably thr[e]w up roadblocks and undermine[d] Minneapolis's desperate efforts to obtain" a warrant to search Moussaoui's laptop computer. Rowley also complained that Minneapolis was not told of a July memo by agent Kenneth Williams, in the Phoenix office, which had suggested that al-Qaeda was trying to infiltrate American flight schools.

Partisan point-scoring is not in itself a bad thing. The American system is designed to induce politicians to pursue the public good in pursuit of their own interest. It is also no bad thing to have the Democrats criticizing Bush from his right. If they showed more wisdom, and if they had better records of security consciousness themselves, they would be more credible, and do the country more good.

With all the evidence we have, President Bush can manifestly defend himself for his actions before 9/11. The Bush administration, like the Bush campaign, however, has a tendency to lower a cone of protection around all of its associates. The president should not preemptively spring to the defense of the FBI and the CIA. Looking into their pre-war failures is not a distraction in wartime, since the success of the war depends, in no small part, on their effectiveness. Bad apples have to be discarded, and bad habits changed.

Is the proper forum for this investigation congressional hearings, or an independent commission? Congress will investigate, whether or not there is a commission. But Congress wants an independent commission, too, while the White House wants to leave the job in the hands of Congress. Two investigations into this matter are hardly excessive, and a commission made up of serious and thoughtful people -- on the model of the Rumsfeld commission on the ballistic-missile threat -- could render a service. An effective head of such a body might well be former mayor, and prosecutor, Rudy Giuliani.

The most important problem facing Washington and the country, however, is not the run-up to 9/11, but the preparations for the next phase of the war. One of the reasons for the current brouhaha is that we are in one of this war's many news holes, caused by its many lulls. The rhythms of this conflict are less like the full-time grinds of Vietnam, Korea, and World War II than like the stop-and-start character of the American Revolution, or the War of 1812. Then the gaps in fighting were caused by sheer logistical nightmares. Now we have our own logistical problems -- it was months between the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and the opening of Desert Storm -- as well as enemies, some of whom are elusive terrorist entities.

But the war goes on. Americans know this, better than the political and pundit classes. The warnings of new terrorist attacks, by Vice President Cheney -- "It's not a matter of 'if,' but 'when'" -- and Secretary Rumsfeld -- "They inevitably will get their hands on them [i.e., nukes]" - - are not telling most people anything they don't already know. All the flags are still on the bumpers and the T-shirts. The symbols are cheap, but what they symbolize is not. We lost 3,000 of our own last fall, and we will lose more. When we are done, our enemies will envy us.