The Editorial

Nothing Knew
"I'm the commander - see, I don't need to explain - I do not need to explain why I say things . . . That's the interesting thing about being president."—George Bush to Bob Woodward, as reported by Sidney Blumenthal in The Guardian

I never jumped on the “Bush is an idiot,” bandwagon. I always figured that any guy who could steal the presidency, despite the fact that he profited from an illegal land grab in Texas and snorted cocaine and was arrested for drunk driving, had to have some artful skills—some nascent intelligence. His stupidity, I figured, must be an artful ruse. I liked to think of him as the Teflon president—nothing ever sticks: He falsely led us into war only to now poke fun at the missing weapons of mass destruction, he sends the economy into a nosedive, wages war on Afghanistan while failing to find Osama bin Laden—and this is only the beginning of a long, long list. This takes some skill. Remember, Clinton was nearly impeached over a blowjob.

And then one day last May, I read about the now-infamous August 6, 2001, Presidential Daily Briefing (PDB) and changed my mind. Caving to months of mounting pressure, the White House finally released the document last Saturday night. The title of the brief would have riveted the attention of a preschooler: “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US.” The PDB noted that al Qaeda had an infrastructure within the U.S. which could aid any attack and that the FBI had discovered “suspicious activity . . . consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks.” It noted that al Qaeda planned to use explosives—and, of course, al Qaeda had already struck the U.S.S. Cole and a couple of embassies. Yet on Easter, Bush characterized the PDB as containing no significant information. According to Bush, the PDB “said nothing about an attack on America. It talked about intentions, about somebody who hated America. Well, we knew that.”

Nothing new?

Here are a few gems from the newly declassified memo:

According to an Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) operative, Bin Ladin was planning to exploit the operative’s access to the US to mount a terrorist strike.

Ahmed Ressam [convicted for the millennium plot in Canada] told the FBI that while it was his idea to attack Los Angeles International Airport, “Bin Ladin lieutenant Abu Zubaydah encouraged him and helped facilitate the operation.” According to Ressam Abu Zubaydah was planning his own US attack and “Bin Ladin was aware of the Los Angeles operation.”

An unnamed source reported in 1998 that “a Bin Ladin cell in New York was recruiting Muslim-American youth for attacks.”

And finally,

While uncorroborated, the FBI had received information in 1998 that “Bin Ladin wanted to hijack a US aircraft to gain the release of “Blind Shaykh” ’Umar ’Abd al-Rahman and other US-held extremists.”

The Bush administration, specifically National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, has repeatedly called this PDB “historical.” Bush, who spent the month of August 2001 lazing around his Texas ranch, felt “comforted” that the FBI was doing its job, although, when asked by reporters just who the temporary director of the FBI was between Louis Freeh’s departure in June of 2001 and Robert Mueller’s arrival in September, Bush said “I don’t think there was a director.” Wrong! The acting director was Thomas Pickard.

Pickard’s boss, Attorney General John Ashcroft, you’ll remember, had enough sense to quit flying commercial airlines in July 2001, but not enough sense to prevent him from slashing the counter-terrorism budget by $58 million (ironically he did this on Sept. 10, 2001). Pickard apparently spent the summer writing frustrated memos about Ashcroft’s disinterest in counter-terrorism.

Whereas Bush hung out at his ranch feeling “comforted” that whoever headed up the FBI would alert him to any real threats, Richard A. Clarke, national coordinator for counter-terrorism, told the 9/11 Commission, “I know how this is going to sound but I have to say it: I didn’t think the FBI would know whether or not there was anything going on in the United States.” Clarke, then, along with several members of the commission who nodded at his statement, did not feel “comforted” that the FBI was doing their job.

Meanwhile, the Family Steering Committee, an independently funded commission comprised of family members who lost loved ones in the attacks, has expressed serious reservations about the Commission’s ability to resolve anything. They are concerned about the partisanship of the Committee along with ex-parte communications between the Committee and the White House. They are demanding to know “how a ‘background briefing’ from FOX news was obtained by head commissioner James R. Thompson and also are demanding the declassification of both Clarke’s and Rice’s testimony. They are disturbed by what they see as the over-classification of information and by the letter the White House presented to the Committee, stating that Rice would testify but that “The commission must agree in writing that it will not request additional public testimony from any White House official, including Dr. Rice.”

Meanwhile, Bush ambles along unperturbed, insisting that hey, the White House is open to any new information on how to improve things in the government.

Yeah, right.

See, that’s the thing about being commander. Ultimately, you have to explain to everyone; that’s what makes his job interesting. Considering the swirling confusion within the mass of information, most of it classified, and therefore slightly out of context, most Americans heave a big sigh and write the whole thing off. But that’s the last thing we should be doing. We should be making Bush’s job a little more interesting. --A.M. McNary

For more in-depth information, check out www.thenation.com and www.911independentcommission.org