April 11, 2004

Condi Rice Out-shoots Oxymoronic 9/11 Commission

The showdown between Dr. Condoleezza Rice, national security advisor for President Bush; and Richard Clarke, former counter-terrorism administrator for presidents Clinton and Bush, instead shot down the sheriff.

The self-styled "independent bi-partisan" National Commission on Terrorist Attacks – an hilarious oxymoron – was the only casualty.

For the record, it should be remembered that the so-called 9/11 Commission was created by Congress in late 2002. Theoretically its mission was to determine what we might do to prevent such a terrorist attack in the future.

It is to laugh. Intent from git-go was to pin blame on someone other than Congress, which steadfastly avoided adopting anti-terrorist regulations.  

For years, Congress tut-tutted such atrocities as the bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Lebanon (1982), Pan Am Jet flight 103 over Scotland (1988), first attack on the World Trade Center (1993), twin bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania (1998) and the suicide bomber attack on the USS Cole in Yemen harbor (Oct. 12, 2000).

 Not mentioned are six other terrorist attacks against U.S. installations abroad where American deaths were "minimal."  

President Clinton after the embassy attacks lobbed a couple of cruise missiles against Osma Bin Laden’s abandoned training camp in Afghanistan and a Bin Laden-built aspirin factory in Sudan.

Clinton also lodged a "strong protest" with Yemen over the USS Cole.

In a stunning display of chutzpah, commission inquisitors accused the incoming Bush administration of "doing nothing" about the USS Cole bombing.

G.W. Bush kept Clinton appointees Clarke as terrorism expert, Louis Freeh as head of the FBI, and George Tenet as head of the CIA to "provide continuity."

As a matter of fact, Clarke, Freeh and Tenet did good jobs within the restrictions imposed upon them by Congress.

Freeh had been under constant attack by Congressional Democrats for his attempts to soften the restrictions on wiretaps and arrest warrants for suspected terrorists.

After he continued with G.W. Bush -- and helped Attorney General John Ashcroft craft the Patriot Act to eliminate legal barriers to FBI-CIA intelligence sharing -- congressional liberals howled for Freeh’s scalp. He resigned in June 2001.

Clarke for a time was effusive over the efforts of President Bush to "stop swatting flies" over terrorist attacks and go after bin Laden in Afghanistan. This was to be followed by forceful actions against the three Axis of Evil countries of Iraq, Iran and North Korea that condone terrorism.

When Clarke failed to get a promotion he wanted from Rice, he resigned in Jan. 2003. Then he wrote a book contending the Bush administration had failed to heed warnings of a pending terrorist attack – in hindsight, against the Twin Towers.

Dr. Rice refuted Clarke’s sour grape accusations convincingly against the pit-bull attacks of commission partisans Richard Ben-Veniste and Bob Kerrey.

Ben-Veniste, a Washington lawyer, was lead prosecutor of President of Nixon in Watergate, and lead defender of President Clinton in the latter’s impeachment for lying under oath.  

Kerrey, former Nebraska Senator, is a fervent advocate of all left-wing causes.

Whatinell are Ben-Veniste and Kerrey doing on a fact-finding committee?  

Though Ben-Veniste and Kerrey tried to corner Rice with answer-yes-or-no courtroom badgering, Bush’s national security advisor would not be trapped. She persisted in answering questions fully.

Three hours later she had succeeded in making the points, convincingly, that her boss had his priorities right. Vague hints of possible terrorist attacks prior to 9/11 were not "actionable" as to what, when and where.  

America, the only world power, tried too long to implement the Clintonian "roll back" terrorist policy by United Nations and NATO fiat.

Our experience with trying to "contain" communism in Vietnam should have taught us a lesson in the futility of accommodation with evil.

Admittedly the war on terrorism is a long and dangerous undertaking. Nonetheless, militant, envious, religious fanatics declared World War III piecemeal on democracies.

Armageddon – the final battle between good and evil – is hard upon us.

 PARTING SHOTS

President Bush threw out the first baseball at St. Louis this week. The speed of delivery is a state secret.

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Sen. John Kerry proposes driving down the price of gasoline by tapping into the nation’s Strategic Oil Reserve. President Carter did this, and the price fell one cent a gallon. A penny saved is a penny earned.

Lindsey Williams is a Sun columnist who can be reached at linwms@lindseywilliams.org