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Condi's Take:
Swatting at Flies
Posted, 12:13 a.m., April 9, 2004
Condi Rice says terrorism was a top priority of the new Bush administration in the seven months before the terror attacks on Manhattan and Washington, D.C., on 9/11. Are you convinced?
Rice, the president's national security advisor, finally appeared today before the 9/11 Commission to answer questions under oath about whether the White House had its eye on the ball when it came to the threats posed by Osama bin Laden and his crew of Islamist thugs.
She insists it did. But her performance fell far short of being convincing. In fact, it went the other way.
In a weak attempt to pull a Karen Hughes and make George W. Bush look like a hands-on, committed, noble leader in the fight against terror pre-911, she used an unfortunate bit of boosterism in saying the president told her he was "tired of swatting at flies."
Of course, though Condi left it unstated, one can read that to say that Bush had no time for miniature menaces like Al Qaeda or bin Laden. He had a bigger fly in mind, and its name was Saddam. But even that image makes no sense in the context in which she gave it, as former Sen. Bob Kerrey proved in his blistering questions during today's hearing.
"Dr. Rice, we only swatted a fly once on the 20th of August, 1998, we didn't swat any flies afterwards," Kerrey said, pouncing on Rice's bravado. "How the hell can he be tired?"
"I think [Bush] felt that what the agency was doing was going after individual terrorists here and there, and that's what he meant by 'swatting flies," Rice responds, her galvanic, confident smile never wavering. "It was merely a figure of speech."
When former Illinois governor Jim Thompson asked Rice why the Bush administration had not retaliated for al Qaeda's bombing of the U.S.S. Cole in late 2000--at the end of the Clinton presidency--she demonstrated just how quickly Bush tired of swatting at proverbial flies.
"We really thought that the Cole incident was past, that you didn't want to respond tit for tat," she said. "There's strategical response and there's tactical response, and just responding to another attack in an insufficient way we thought would actually embolden the terrorists."
So, to do nothing would quell the terrorists?
The most damning moment came under questioning from the former Watergate prosecutor Richard Ben-Veniste. Rice had insisted--and continued afterward to insist--that the administration had no real information on looming terrorist attacks before Sept. 11. But Ben-Veniste reminded her of her own previous (private) testimony that Richard Clarke had indeed alerted her to the existence of al Queda terror cells in the United States, and that Rice had also earlier said that the president directed the CIA to compose a presidential daily briefing (PDB) on the subject, which was delivered on Aug. 6, 2001.
At that point, this exchange occurred:
BEN-VENISTE: "Did you tell the president, at any time prior to Aug. 6, of the existence of al Qaeda cells in the United States?"
RICE: "First let me just make certain - "
BEN-VENISTE. "If you could just answer that question. Because I only have a very limited - "
RICE. "Well, first - I understand, Commissioner."
BEN-VENISTE. "Did you tell the president?"
RICE. "But it's important that I also address - It's also important, Commissioner, that I address the other issues that you've raised. So I will do it quickly. But if you'll just give me moment."
BEN-VENISTE. "Well, my only question to you is whether you told the president - "
RICE. "I understand, Commissioner, but I will, if you'll just give me a moment, I will address fully the questions that you've asked.
"First of all, yes, the Aug. 6 P.D.B. was in response to questions of the president. In that sense, he asked that this be done. It was not a particular threat report. And there was historical information in there about -- about various aspects of al Qaeda's operations. Dick Clarke had told me, I think in a memorandum -- I remember it as being only a line or two -- that there were al Qaeda cells in the United States. Now, the question is: What did we need to do about that? And I also understood that that was what the F.B.I. was doing, that the F.B.I. was pursuing these al Qaeda cells. I believe in the Aug. 6 memorandum it says that there were 70 full field investigations underway of these cells. And so there was no recommendation that we do something about this -- the F.B.I. was pursuing it.
"I really don't remember, Commissioner, whether I discussed this with the president."
That's a lot of dancing for a rather dubious I-don't-remember.
By the way, the title of the PDB, unveiled for the first time to the public today, says it all. "Bin Laden Determined To Attack Inside the United States." But that title set off no alarms for a president then relaxing at his Crawford, Texas ranch. That CIA report, Rice insisted today, was historical information based on old reporting. "There was no new threat information. And it did not, in fact, warn of any coming attacks inside the United States."
Unless, of course, you happened to read the title.
Whether a more vigilant Bush White House might have prevented 9/11 is doubtful, though the former counterrorism chief Dick Clarke's assertion that if the administration had set in motion alerts to its various departments about the presence of al Qaeda operatives and the potential for using planes as flaming spears, it seems at least a few hijackers would have been nabbed. Might that have pulled the whole plot down? How could we ever know?
But that really is history. The real question is, when will this administration stop dealing with important questions -- including what now are even more crucial questions about the way it plans to handle a disintegrating situation in Iraq -- based on the public interest? And not based on obsessively painting this rather woeful president as a conquering superhero?
Copyright 2004, by Kevin Featherly
