Commission warned Bush
But White House passed on recommendations by a bipartisan, Defense department-ordered commission on domestic terrorism.

By Jake Tapper

Sept. 12, 2001 | WASHINGTON -- They went to great pains not to sound as though they were telling the president "We told you so."

But on Wednesday, two former senators, the bipartisan co-chairs of a Defense Department-chartered commission on national security, spoke with something between frustration and regret about how White House officials failed to embrace any of the recommendations to prevent acts of domestic terrorism delivered earlier this year.

Bush administration officials told former Sens. Gary Hart, D-Colo., and Warren Rudman, R-N.H., that they preferred instead to put aside the recommendations issued in the January report by the U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century. Instead, the White House announced in May that it would have Vice President Dick Cheney study the potential problem of domestic terrorism -- which the bipartisan group had already spent two and a half years studying -- while assigning responsibility for dealing with the issue to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, headed by former Bush campaign manager Joe Allbaugh.

The Hart-Rudman Commission had specifically recommended that the issue of terrorism was such a threat it needed far more than FEMA's attention.

Before the White House decided to go in its own direction, Congress seemed to be taking the commission's suggestions seriously, according to Hart and Rudman. "Frankly, the White House shut it down," Hart says. "The president said 'Please wait, we're going to turn this over to the vice president. We believe FEMA is competent to coordinate this effort.' And so Congress moved on to other things, like tax cuts and the issue of the day."

"We predicted it," Hart says of Tuesday's horrific events. "We said Americans will likely die on American soil, possibly in large numbers -- that's a quote (from the commission's Phase One Report) from the fall of 1999."

On Tuesday, Hart says, as he sat watching TV coverage of the attacks, he experienced not just feelings of shock and horror, but also frustration. "I sat tearing my hair out," says the former two-term senator. "And still am."

Rudman generally agrees with Hart's assessment, but adds: "That's not to say that the administration was obstructing."

"They wanted to try something else, they wanted to put more responsibility with FEMA," Rudman says. "But they didn't get a chance to do very much" before terrorists struck on Tuesday.

The White House referred an inquiry to the National Security Council, which did not return a call for comment.

The bipartisan 14-member panel was put together in 1998 by then-President Bill Clinton and then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., to make sweeping strategic recommendations on how the United States could ensure its security in the 21st century.

In its Jan. 31 report, seven Democrats and seven Republicans unanimously approved 50 recommendations. Many of them addressed the point that, in the words of the commission's executive summary, "the combination of unconventional weapons proliferation with the persistence of international terrorism will end the relative invulnerability of the U.S. homeland to catastrophic attack."

"A direct attack against American citizens on American soil is likely over the next quarter century," according to the report.

The commission recommended the formation of a Cabinet-level position to combat terrorism. The proposed National Homeland Security Agency director would have "responsibility for planning, coordinating, and integrating various U.S. government activities involved in homeland security," according to the commission's executive summary.

Other commission recommendations include having the proposed National Homeland Security Agency assume responsibilities now held by other agencies -- border patrol from the Justice Department, Coast Guard from the Transportation Department, customs from the Treasury Department, the National Domestic Preparedness Office from the FBI, cyber-security from the FBI and the Commerce Department. Additionally, the NHSA would take over FEMA, and let the "National Security Advisor and NSC staff return to their traditional role of coordinating national security activities and resist the temptation to become policymakers or operators."

The commission was supposed to disband after issuing the report Jan. 31, but Hart and the other commission members got a six-month extension to lobby for their recommendations. Hart says he spent 90 minutes with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and an hour with Secretary of State Colin Powell lobbying for the White House to devote more attention to the imminent dangers of terrorism and their specific, detailed recommendations for a major change in the way the federal government approaches terrorism. He and Rudman briefed National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice on the commission's findings.

For a time, the commission seemed to be on a roll.

On April 3, before the Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Terrorism and Technology, Hart sounded a call of alarm, saying that an "urgent" need existed for a new national security strategy, with an emphasis on intelligence gathering.

"Good intelligence is the key to preventing attacks on the homeland," Hart said, arguing that the commission "urges that homeland security become one of the intelligence community's most important missions." The nation needed to embrace "homeland security as a primary national security mission." The Defense Department, for instance, "has placed its highest priority on preparing for major theater war" where it "should pay far more attention to the homeland security mission." Homeland security would be the main purpose of beefed-up National Guard units throughout the country.

A new strategy, new organizations like the National Homeland Security Agency -- which would pointedly "not be heavily centered in the Washington, D.C. area" -- would be formed to fulfill this mission, as well with the fallout should that mission fail. As the U.S. is now, the Phase III report stated, "its structures and strategies are fragmented and inadequate." Diplomacy was to be refocused on intelligence sharing about terrorist groups. Allies were to have their military, intelligence and law enforcement agencies work more closely with ours. Border security was to be beefed up.

More resources needed to be devoted to the new mission. "The Customs Service, the Border Patrol, and the Coast Guard are all on the verge of being overwhelmed by the mismatch between their growing duties and their mostly static resources," the report stated. Intelligence needed to focus not only on electronic surveillance but a renewed emphasis on human surveillance -- informants and spies -- "especially on terrorist groups covertly supported by states." As the threat was imminent, Congress and the president were urged to "start right away on implementing the recommendations put forth here."

Congress seemed interested in enacting many of the commission's recommendations. "We had a very good response from the Hill," Rudman says.

In March, Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, introduced the National Homeland Security Agency Act. Other members of Congress -- Rep. Wayne Gilchrest, R-Md., John Kyl, R-Ariz., Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. -- talked about the issue, and these three and others began drafting legislation to enact some of the recommendations into law.

But in May, Bush announced his plan almost as if the Hart-Rudman Commission never existed, as if it hadn't spent millions of dollars, "consulting with experts, visiting 25 countries worldwide, really deliberating long and hard," as Hart describes it. Bush said in a statement that "numerous federal departments and agencies have programs to deal with the consequences of a potential use of a chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear weapon in the United States. But to maximize their effectiveness, these efforts need to be seamlessly integrated, harmonious and comprehensive." That, according to the president, should be done through FEMA, headed by Allbaugh, formerly Bush's gubernatorial chief of staff.

Bush also directed Cheney -- a man with a full plate, including supervision of the administration's energy plans and its dealings with Congress -- to supervise the development of a national counter-terrorism plan. Bush announced that Cheney and Allbaugh would review the issues and have recommendations for him by Oct. 1. The commission's report was seemingly put on the shelf.

Just last Thursday, Hart spoke with Rice again. "I told her that I and the others on the commission would do whatever we could to work with the vice president to move on this," Hart said. "She said she would pass on the message."

On Tuesday, Hart says he spent much of his time on the phone with the commission's executive director, Gen. Charles G. Boyd. "We agreed the thing we should not do is say, 'We told you so,'" Hart says. "And that's not what I'm trying to do here. Our focus needs to be: What do we do now?"

Of course, as a former senator, Hart well knows what happens to the recommendations of blue-chip panels. But he says he thought that the gravity of the issue -- and the comprehensiveness of the commission's task -- would prevent its reports from being ignored. After all, when then-Secretary of Defense William Cohen signed the charter for the 21st Century National Security Strategy Study, he charged its members to engage in "the most comprehensive security analysis" since the groundbreaking National Security Act of 1947, which created the National Security Council, the Central Intelligence Agency and the Office of Secretary of Defense, among other organizations.

Neither Hart nor Rudman claim that their recommendations, if enacted, would have necessarily prevented Tuesday's tragedy. "Had they adopted every recommendation we had put forward at that time I don't think it would have changed what happened," Rudman says. "There wasn't enough time to enact everything. But certainly I would hope they pay more attention now."

"Could this have been prevented?" Hart asks. "The answer is, 'We'll never know.' Possibly not." It was a struggle to convince President Clinton of the need for such a commission, Hart says. He urged Clinton to address this problem in '94 and '95, but Clinton didn't act until 1998, prompted by politics. "He saw Gingrich was about to do it, so he moved to collaborate," Hart says. "Seven years had gone by since the end of the Cold War. It could have been much sooner."

Rudman said that he "would not be critical of them [the Bush administration] this early because the bottom line is, a lot has to be done." The commission handed down its recommendations just eight and a half months ago, he said, and they'll take years to fully enact.

"On the other hand," Rudman said, "if two years go by and the same thing happens again, shame on everybody.

"I'm not pointing fingers," Rudman said. "I just want to see some results." He may get his wish. On Wednesday, Thornberry renewed his call for a National Homeland Security Agency. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., the assistant majority leader, called for the formation of a federal counter-terrorism czar.

Three days ago, if asked to predict what the first major foreign terrorist attack on America soil would involve, Hart says he would have guessed small nuclear warheads simultaneously unleashed on three American cities. But, he says, "there wasn't doubt in anyone's mind on that commission" that something horrific would happen "probably sooner rather than later. We just didn't know how."

In addition to the Bush administration, Hart has another group that he wishes had paid the commission's suggestions more heed. "The national media didn't pay attention," Hart says. One senior reporter from a well-known publication told one of Hart's fellow commissioners, "This isn't important, none of this is ever going to happen," Hart says. "That's a direct quote."

Hart points out that while the New York Times mentioned the commission in a Wednesday story with the sub-headline "Years of Unheeded Alarms," that story was the first serious mention the Times itself had ever given the commission. The Times did not cover the commission's report in January, nor did it cover Hart's testimony in April, he points out. "We're in an age where we don't want to deal with serious issues, we want to deal with little boys pitching baseballs who might be 14 instead of 12."

Hart says he just shook his head when he saw a former Clinton administration Cabinet official on TV Tuesday calling for the formation of a commission to study the best way to combat terrorism. "If a former Cabinet officer didn't know, how could the average man on the street? I do hope the American people understand that somebody was paying attention."

In his April 3 testimony, Hart noted that "the prospect of mass casualty terrorism on American soil is growing sharply. That is because the will to terrorism and the ways to perpetrate it are proliferating and merging. We believe that, over the next quarter century, this danger will be one of the most difficult national security challenges facing the United States -- and the one we are least prepared to address." He urgently described the need for better human intelligence and not just electronic intelligence, "especially on terrorist groups covertly supported by states."

He's far from happy to have been proven correct. Both Hart and Rudman say with grim confidence that Tuesday's attacks are just the beginning. Maybe now, Rudman says, Congress, the White House, the media and the American people will realize how serious they were about their January report.

"Human nature is prevalent in government as well," Rudman says. "We tend not to do what we ought to do until we get hit between the eyes."

-- Cherri (jessam6@home.com), September 14, 2001

Answers

Hart points out that while the New York Times mentioned the commission in a Wednesday story with the sub-headline "Years of Unheeded Alarms," that story was the first serious mention the Times itself had ever given the commission.

Oh fer christ sakes, gotta get that anti Bush dig in, don't you loser? And what was Clinton doing to combat terrorism on our soil?? Ohhh, that's right, he was getting his penis polished by young interns!!!!

-- Gary (gcphelps@yahoo.com), September 14, 2001.

I did? Seems to me it was in the article. and if you had your nose out of Clinton's crotch you would know what he had done to bring peace to the world. He sat the Isralies and Palistinians down at Camp David and worked with them to work out a peace agreement... Which Bush said right off was not his job and our efforts to help establish a peace settlement between the Israel and the Palistanians fell apart and they have had escalating fighting ever since. Clinton worked at establishing peace agreements in many areas of the world. I wondered if anyone was bothering to notice his ability to run the country and work towards world peace amongst other things he did in the 8 years in office while the media and right wing extremists were screaming their heads off with accuasation after rumor that ended up holding no truth.

People were eating up the rumors and accuasations but didn't seem to notice the little news articles telling them there was nothing to them.

You say Clinton had a sorded past? Read this and find out just exactly how you were fed so much false information many take as fact today... It is long, can you handle reading the whole thing? There is too a conspiracy

As for Bush bashing... READ THE DAMN THING!!! He wasn't interested, he delegated it to FEMA!!!

It wasn't important because it was not one of his pet payback projects.

Facts are facts and you should read just how important national security was to him when it was not his missle shield project. How far will you go to keep your head in the sand????

Oh geeze...I feel sick....what has to happen to open your eyes??? A nuclear war that kills every living thing on the earth?

-- Cherri (jessam6@home.com), September 14, 2001.

Cherri you worthless American Wantabe. You lost your credibility about 10 threads ago. You would not know the truth if it bit you in that big fat azz of yours.

-- Dr. Thinkright (jessam@needs.ashrink), September 14, 2001.

"A direct attack against American citizens on American soil is likely over the next quarter century," according to the report.

"Likely over the next 25 years"? Doesn't sound urgent to me.

Bush announced that Cheney and Allbaugh would review the issues and have recommendations for him by Oct. 1.

How does that show Bush "ignored" the report?

You've been reading biased left-wing articles again.

-- Glasses (might@help.you), September 14, 2001.

I prefer to just spit on her.

Pitouey!

-- Betsy Ross (Red White @nd .blue), September 14, 2001.

he was getting his penis polished

If you're going to go with colloquialisms, Gary, go all the way. His knob was polished. Who polishes a penis? Jeesh!

-- Anita (Anita_S3@hotmail.com), September 14, 2001.

From a glance, it appears to me that the report essentially recommends reorganizing the people who are supposed to address the problem. But if the people currently responsible for the problem can't solve it, and Congress can't solve it, what is there to suggest that transferring the problem to a different group of people will yield a solution.

Yet, Senator Hart seems to characterize this kind of buck passing as "specific, detailed recommendations." Perhaps that qualifies as specific in the surreal world of Washington, but I doubt there are many "real" jobs where such recommendations would be so judged. (Manager: What data elements does System A need to transmit to System B? Employee: Let's convene a task force to study it and report back in a couple years. Manager: You're fired.)

-- David L (bumpkin@dnet.net), September 14, 2001.

while you argue,and insult 1 another-ahab the arab'is making plans.

-- al-d. (dogs@zianet.com), September 14, 2001.

I'm watching C-span showing the commission above at a conference (Friday) in which the subject of this thread is being discussed.

If not here, congrss and almost every government agency is paying attention to it and relaizing their mistakes in the past of ignoring the commissions report. This is not partisn, it is the safety of our nation at stake. If you have a problem with me, it would be stupid to cut off your nose to spite your face by not paying attention.

-- Cherri (jessam6@home.com), September 15, 2001.

Cherri, since you brought it up (and keep bringing it up), Clinton got us here. First by dismantling our military and second by doing nothing but wag his finger (which he does quite frequently) at Osama. If Clinton had *some* kind of foreign policy, we wouldn't be cleaning out the rubble today. Clinton is to blame for all this. History will NOT look favorably on our previous administration. Face it, he did nothing for our country but feel our pain. I'm sure that's exactly what he'd be saying right now, given the chance.

What I find interesting is that the dems are screwed in all this. They cannot win in Congress in 2002 or the administration in 2004 without looking unpatriotic. What a quandry!

-- Maria (anon@ymous.com), September 17, 2001.

Actually the only comment I have seen from Clinton is "we should trust President Bush to make the right decisions." A much more magnamious statement than he would have received from any of you or any of the Republicans in office during his terms.

Did you ever consider the fact that with so much focus on trying to "get" Clinton during his term from Congress that perhaps it was very hard to have much time (let alone support) for an effective or aggressive foreign policy? Less time spent on worrying about who is getting their knob polished, or their wicked dipped for that matter, might be a good thing for the country as a whole.

Most administration bring certain strengths to the oval office (quit snickering you perverts) and usually this breaks down into a better performance in either domestic policy or foreign policy. Very rarely is any President's administration praised for being equally effective on both fronts.

For example, Richard Nixon is known for strength in the area of foreign policy. Not many would say the same thing about his domestic policy would they? Sorry that might be a bad example for this group. I'm sure there are many who thing Nixon had the perfect domestic policy. Especially the parts where you go to any length to focus on the sexual misadventures of opponents.

-- Jack Booted Thug (governmentconspiracy@NWO.com), September 17, 2001.

Jack Booted Thug,

There is a world of difference between what Clinton's critics said about him when we were in a time of peace, and what the same critics would have said about him had the WTC tragedy occurred while he was President. I wish that I could say the same of Cherri and Doc Droolie.

Oh, and by the way, since your spell checker must be on the fritz, it's magnanimous, not magnamious.

-- J (Y2J@home.comm), September 17, 2001.

And who dismantled the CIA ground-intelligence gathering capabities? (Hint, San Frank Church, D, Idaho, 1970s)

-- Lars (lars@indy.net), September 17, 2001.

J,

I don't bother with a spell checker, as you know there are enough people here that can do that for us.

Thank you for your response. I realize that this is an unfair comparison but give me a break. This is all Clinton's fault. He is not the sitting President right now and if this administration had a prior warning and ignored it, how is this Clinton's fault? My point is not to bash Bush, because if there was a screw up with the warning that is all water under the bridge. But how long is everything that happens that is bad or perceived to be bad going to be Clinton's fault?

When does the current administration have to take the heat for its own fuckups? Do you believe that Bush can do no wrong? Is Bush completely "good" and Clinton purely "evil"? I don't believe that ANYONE is completely perfect. Do you?

Maria (and others) seem to think that *history* will show that Clinton was the worst thing that ever happened to this country since the Sixteenth Amendment. I do not believe that anyone who is living at the time can accurately predict how the future will view their own history. I think it is a case of not seeing the forest for the trees syndrome.

I guess my main point by posting to this thread was to point out that Clinton's only input into this issue that I have seen was that we should support the President and trust him. That is a good point of view I think. It may kill some of the Clinton haters on this board but I believe that that is how they think too. Agreeing with Clinton on anything (even when it matches exactly what they are criticizing Cherri, Doc, etc. for) is not something I think they want to admit. I think that it is to the man's credit that when asked for a comment this is what he says. Can any of the Clinton bashers acknowledge that?

If you go through all these various threads I believe the first thing I posted about this Clinton/Bush hassle after the terrorists attacks was that time will tell but that Bush could be the best guy to have as President RIGHT NOW. That does not change my mind that he is not the brightest bulb in the chandelier, but that politically he could be the man to handle this type of crisis. That is because of the advisors that he has (including Bush Sr.) and his ability to appear more forceful and caring than Gore.

At any rate, I believe that this whole who is right Bush/Clinton debate is moot at this time. Focus on the real issues at hand not who's fault it is. My god you could blame Harry Truman for this because of the inadequate settlement of the Palestinian issue. You could blame FDR, Churchill and Stalin for defeating Hitler before he had a chance to exterminate the Jews. You could blame Pope (I forget) for not seeing that the Crusades were not completed more effectively with the complete destruction and eradication of the Islamic faith. Where do you stop?

I do believe that we should support President Bush but I also believe that he and his administration are the ones to hold accountable for dealing with this crisis. When it is all over and the 20/20 hindsight analysis begins (and it will) it should be his responsibilty for how he deals with it, not just that it was Clinton's fault.

-- Jack Booted Thug (governmentconspiracy@NWO.com), September 17, 2001.

Jack Booted Thug,

I was just ribbing you on the spelling error. We all make them from time to time. It is only when one continually makes spelling errors that I begin to question one's level of intelligence, and therefore, one's credibility.

I have no problem admitting that I agree with what former President Clinton said when he said that, "we should trust President Bush to make the right decisions". It is my belief that now is not the time to bash the former President, nor is it the time to Bash the current President.

Where I took issue with your post was your claim that "any of you" (that would presumably include me), "or any of the Republicans in office during his terms", would not have said anything so magnanimous had Clinton been President at the time of this tragedy.

I obviously cannot speak for anyone else besides myself, but as an American, the last thing that I would have done, despite my great disagreement with the man on many, many issues, would have been to criticize President Clinton when our nation had just been so viciously attacked. There is a time to argue politics and ideologies, and there is a time to put those things on the back burner and unite to face the enemy.

-- J (Y2J@home.comm), September 17, 2001.

Maria: What I find interesting is that the dems are screwed in all this. They cannot win in Congress in 2002 or the administration in 2004 without looking unpatriotic. What a quandry!

I'm having a hard time following your leap to this conclusion. I seem to remember Bush I receiving the same rally of support during/after the Gulf War, and he only served one term.

-- Anita (Anita_S3@hotmail.com), September 17, 2001.

"But how long is everything that happens that is bad or perceived to be bad going to be Clinton's fault?" When people stop posting this drivel. A report told that Americans would soon feel the effects of terrorism on their own soil! Well duh! No shit?! Who didn't predict that very same thing? That report contains general 'warnings'. As a matter of fact it predicted nukes on our soil "over the next quarter century". Let's see that's 25 years with weapons of mass destruction, not our own airlines. Sounds pretty vague and totally missing the mark to me and yet they claim "I told you so". Silly at best.

And if the prediction came in 1999 ("Americans will likely die on American soil, possibly in large numbers" -- that's a quote (from the commission's Phase One Report) from the fall of 1999), why didn't Clinton do something at that time?

"I do not believe that anyone who is living at the time can accurately predict how the future will view their own history. I think it is a case of not seeing the forest for the trees syndrome." We all have our opinions. I post mine; you post yours. You can claim I can't see the forest for the trees and I can claim the same about you. We are seeing the *direct* results of Clinton policies. See it or not; the choice is yours. Clinton had eight years to change whatever foreign policies to make it a better world. You reap what you sow. We are experiencing the results of his seeds. That's how history will view it.

I wrote, "I'm sure that's exactly what he'd be saying right now, given the chance." I speculated on what he would say if he were president in this situation. The 'd stands for would, as in probability. I agree that his comments are magnanimous... and politically astute of him.

"I believe that this whole who is right Bush/Clinton debate is moot at this time." Then I suggest you direct that at Cherri, the poster of this thread, who seems to be debating this more than anyone. This is my first response to her continued Bush bashing since the incident on Tuesday. You're chastising Clinton bashers but not Bush bashers. Bush is now cleaning up the Clinton mess. As the article suggests, he can not be held responsible with an "I told you so".

-- Maria (anon@ymous.com), September 17, 2001.

Anita,

I was watching Fox News Sunday with Tony Snow or Brit Hume (can't remember which) interviewing Gephardt. As he spoke I was stuck by his non-partisan talk not because he shouldn't but because there's no other way for him to respond. Appearing partisan at this time would be extremely suicidal politically.

I recall the Gulf war and the German wall coming down. Both events weren't enough to get Bush re-elected. Neither event was on the level of Tuesday's attack. This will have far lasting effects beyond the short-term memory of the American public. I'm anticipating how the dems will handle this in the very near future, next year's elections.

-- Maria (anon@ymous.com), September 17, 2001.

"Bush is now cleaning up the Clinton mess. "

Can't this also be said as Bush Jr. is now cleaning up the Bush Sr. mess? Don't you think the Persian Gulf war with the attack on Iraq and the stationing of US troops on Saudi soil have anything to do with bin Lauden's attitude towards the US? Do you think any foreign policy followed by the US has had any impact in how we are viewed in the world (especially in the Mideast)? Can it be that eight years of Clinton foreign policy is the only reason this has happened?

-- Jack Booted Thug (governmentconspiracy@NWO.com), September 17, 2001.

"And if the prediction came in 1999 ("Americans will likely die on American soil, possibly in large numbers" -- that's a quote (from the commission's Phase One Report) from the fall of 1999), why didn't Clinton do something at that time? "

Maybe because he was a lame duck President who had to spend too much time defending himself from people who wanted to know ever last detailed of him getting his knob polished. Where was everyone's concern over foreign policy then?

I'm sorry but you can't blame everything on Clinton even though you would like to. Geopolitical issues are shaped over very long periods of time. See Lars' post above. CIA capabilities were compromised in the 1970's. The lack of human intelligence assets is a major issue in the lack of being prepared for this attack. Is this Clintons fault?

In case you don't realize a President is limited in unilaterally setting foreign policy. He has to get cooperation from others and a great many of those others were concerned elsewhere. Where is their blame?

-- Jack Booted Thug (governmentconspiracy@NWO.com), September 17, 2001.

You are getting closer JBT, but no cigar yet.

Try this link for more clues.

-- Uncle Deedah (unkeed@yahoo.com), September 17, 2001.

Unk, I read the link. I disagree with the article. This notion that Osama follows any rules is ludicrous. Violence begets violence in the real world. We're not dealing with the real world; we're in some foreign, unknown arena. No matter what we have done or didn't do, Osama doesn't like us. We represent Satan and there's no logic or normal rules involved in his hatred. He laughs at our form of 'justice'. We bring his followers to trial. What a joke! This meant nothing to this man.

One point I did agree with involves our foreign policy under Clinton. He got into it with numerous countries. He had no clue yet continued to send troops everywhere. That was his answer to everything. What a waste of time, money, and military power! At least Bush did a "get in and get out" routine. Set the mission, do it and be done. Clinton wanted this 'peacekeeping' bullshit with no real mission which just drained us and pissed a lot of the ragheads off.

JBT suffice it to say that we disagree. Clinton was an idiot with foreign policy and how to deal with the military and we're now paying the price.

-- Maria (anon@ymous.com), September 18, 2001.

"Maybe because he was a lame duck President who had to spend too much time defending himself..." Maybe because he was working on getting $ for pardons. (Sorry couldn't let that one go)

-- Maria (anon@ymous.com), September 18, 2001.

A fox news interview led to this belief, Maria? As 'J' said above, it is in extremely poor taste to go against the President at THIS time. It's a week/month for the country to come together as one.

-- Anita (Anita_S3@hotmail.com), September 18, 2001.

"A fox news interview led to this belief, Maria?" (LOL Anita, die hard aren't you? You're entitled to your opinion as obtuse as it is.) No, it happened at the same time as the interview NOT as a result of any discussion or particular answers. I found irony in this new rhetoric from Gephardt.

"As 'J' said above, it is in extremely poor taste to go against the President at THIS time." And as I agreed, "no other way for him to respond." They have to stand "shoulder to shoulder". They have no choice but to stop the bickering. Doesn't that kind of put the campaign mud slinging into a real dilemma? That's my point Anita. How do they say the repubs are doing a bad job and this country needs more dems in the face of all this? Get it? If you were campaign manager, how would you go about spinning this without looking like the biggest asshole?

"It's a week/month for the country to come together as one." The country appreciates your patriotism. Now tell that to Cherri.

-- Maria (anon@ymous.com), September 18, 2001.

Maria, that's an Oak your looking at currently. The Elms and Birches are over there ->.

-- Jack Booted Thug (governmentconspiracy@NWO.com), September 18, 2001.

Speaking of trees...

Episode 12B. How to recognize different types of trees from quite a long way away.

No. 1.

The Larch.

The Larch.

Larch Tree Link

-- Rich (living_in_interesting_times@hotmail.com), September 18, 2001.

MY point, Maria, is that when the month is over the Dems will have an opportunity to look at how much money was given to this effort [although worthy at the time] and ask why the SS fund is being depleted. There will be some HARD questioning at that time, IMO.

Yes, of course, no one wants to appear unpatriotic at THIS time. Unlike you, I don't believe that Americans will hold this crisis in front of their eyes for a period beyond this month. At the end of that period, I suspect that MANY will look at what we as a country did, and question it.

-- Anita (Anita_S3@hotmail.com), September 18, 2001.

Over 5,000 dead with 100's of billions of dollars in direct damage and you think the public will not see it ('in front of their eyes') next month. Yes we do think very differently.

-- Maria (anon@ymous.com), September 18, 2001.

Sorry, I'm just floored Anita. Did you happen to see a plane fly into WTC? The entire country (and world) was changed in an instant.

You think in less than a month from now people will start complaining about spending the SS fund, a surplus (let me spell that for you S U R P L U S) of funds. People will start complaining about having to remove the rubble (it will still be going on) to find bodies or merely pieces. People will complain about air travel with three-hour waiting lines. Thousands of people who have lost their jobs will blame the repubs for it. The dems will begin to bicker once again about Bush not doing a good job on the domestic front, worried about SS. Besides SS funds being spent, what other HARD questions will the American public be asking; please I can't fathom this.

In less than a month, you will not feel as you do right now? Your unified stand "together as one" will only last a month!

Another thing I heard last week, that also floored me, was the possibility of people suing the airlines. Holding the airlines responsible and expecting money in damages is absolutely beyond me.

-- Maria (anon@ymous.com), September 18, 2001.