Structure Not Personnel
From ABC News:After the appearance of National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice on CBS's 60 Minutes Sunday, during which she said she didn't know how "we could have done more" to stop the 9/11 attacks, the already high heat has only turned up on both Rice and the whole Bush foreign policy team.
Yet the issue may not be so much one of the people involved as the structure in place to deal with national security and specifically the terrorism threat, some experts say. Where the White House fell down, even some past members of GOP national security teams say, was in dovetailing national security — which during the cold war was seen as a foreign-policy matter — with its domestic ramifications. Rice was not on top of coordinating the international and domestic aspects of national security before Sept. 11, says Raymond Tanter, a former NSC official in the Reagan administration, but that is because the redefinition of national security prompted by 9/11 had not yet occurred.
"If Henry Kissinger had been the national security adviser in July of 2001, he would have been in the same position as Rice," says Tanter. "The problem was and in some ways continues to be international and domestic coordination. Even Kissinger, as strong as he was, had no authority to knock around somebody like [Attorney General] John Mitchell."
Matt's Chat
Examining the structure and culture of the national security establishment is really what the 9/11 Commission should be doing instead of politicizing intelligence and national security. This is exactly why Jamie Gorelick is sitting on the wrong side of the table. The reality of the situation is that 9/11 changed the way we look at national security.Historically, national security has been viewed as a foreign policy issue rather than a domestic problem. Why? Before 9/11, we felt secure because there was a big ocean between us and most of the violence. On 9/11, that perception was changed. Forever.
That's what we mean when we say 9/11 changed the world. It really changed the perception that we wouldn't be attacked on our own soil. That we were at risk.
While there were many valid reasons for establishing the "wall of separation" between our intelligence services, that wall did not serve us on 9/11. We need to determine whether we need to tear down that wall or create new agencies with the specific task of protecting us. The Department of Homeland Security is a step in the right direction. Is it enough? The Commission should be asking that question rather than playing politics.
I will disagree with this statement on page 2 of the web article:
Tanter says the Clinton administration was successful in creating the foreign-domestic coordination "ad hoc," as seen in the successful derailing of a planned terrorist attack on Los Angeles International Airport in late 1999.That plot was not foiled because of some Clintonista super-plan; that was luck and some sharp Customs agents getting the job done. They thought it was a drug bust, not a terror plot. And contrary to what you may have heard from Mr. Clarke, those folks weren't on any alert. Does the previous administration deserve credit for getting lucky? I think so; but I don't think that breaking that plot means the Bush administration should have been able to thwart 9/11.
The idea that I support is a new organization with a new mission similar to Britain's MI-5. A domestic intelligence agency with the powers to defend the nation against plots like 9/11. Prior to 9/11, I don't think there would have been much support for such an organization, but now...
Another idea is to create a new high level position, a Director of Intelligence. I actually don't like this idea because we already have that in a sense and it isn't working. We need new people with a new mission.
Mark's Remarks
This group of former GOP NSC members is doing exactly what the 9/11 commission should be doing. Isn't it sad that these supposed partisans are more nonjudgemental than Gorelick and Kerrey and bin Vineste and Co.? Where is the sticking to the mission of looking at structure and culture, instead of playing the blame game? It is absent, because you have some hacks on a commission more concerned with CYA (Jamie Gorelick) or resurrecting dead political careers (Kerrey) than in doing what they are chartered to do: help improve the protection of the American people.
Matt hits the issue with what he and I and ANY rational person has been saying: this country had been lulled into false security. We believed oceans would keep us safe, even as we forgot Pearl Harbor. We believed that there were no threats, as we heard talk of peace dividends and gutting military. We were told terrorists were simple lawbreakers, not mass murderers and people who were at war with us. All of that was cultural and structural. It was not any personnel issue; it was an issue of attitude. We had become soft, we had become lacking in vigilance.
9/11 changed that. It made us realize that we still have enemies....enemies more bent on destruction and more bent on murder than in the past. We fight not against principalities, but against hateful ideas, against perverters of faith. We face a foe we have not seen in some time. We face true evil.
We can either run from it, as we did from all conflict in recent years, or we can confront it; and hope and pray that good beats evil. I would much rather go out with a yell than a whimper. Apparently, not everyone sees it that way.
No, that is not true. I think most people see that we need to fight. However, instead of looking at how we can fight threats better, we have taken back to the days of being so politically self-interested we are not paying attention to matters that need paid attention to. And, because of that, I have reason to believe we may not have seen the last of a 9/11 attack.
We have got to focus on solutions, not blame. WE have got to worry about going forward, instead of going back.
