Irresponsibility and politics

The so-called “September 11 Commission” is supposedly trying to find out what happened, or failed to happen, that allowed the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001 to succeed. But there is a big difference between trying to unearth facts about September 11, and trying to collect political ammunition for Nov. 2, 2004 — Election Day.

It has become painfully obvious from some commission members’ grandstanding, especially during their questioning of National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, that they are more interested in scoring political points during an election year than in finding out what happened before the terrorist attacks in 2001.

Many of what were presented to Miss Rice as questions were really political speeches — and the fact the questioners tried to keep her from replying to their insinuations showed how little interest they had in finding out facts.

After all, Condoleezza Rice had already testified for hours before this same commission in private, so calling her back to testify again before television cameras was pure politics.

The underlying assumption that an unprecedented surprise attack could succeed only if there was an intelligence failure is one of the signs of the lack of realism in our times.

During World War II, the American government knew the Japanese were likely to attack us somewhere, somehow, during the last months of 1941 — but that was wholly different from knowing they were going to bomb Pearl Harbor on December 7.

To some today, the fact the Bush administration had received warnings al Qaeda was up to something should have told it terrorists would fly planes into the World Trade Center on September 11th.

We know from Osama bin Laden himself that not even all the terrorists on the hijacked planes that flew into the World Trade Center knew this was what those in the cockpit would do. If hijackers on the planes didn’t know, how could anyone else?

The same people who have been criticizing our Homeland Security’s generalized warnings and alerts seem to think generalized information before September 11 should have let the administration know what specifically the terrorists were going to do and when and how they were going to do it.

Commission member and former Sen. Bob Kerrey argued that President Bush had enough information on the terrorist networks before September 11 to ask Congress for a declaration of war on them.

Put aside the fact this commission is supposed to find out what actually happened, not draw up plays like Monday morning quarterbacks. Can you imagine what would have happened if President Bush had done what Bob Kerrey suggested?

Suppose the president had somehow managed to get the closely divided Congress to issue a declaration of war against terrorist networks prior to September 11 and then attacks happened. You know and I know the president’s declaration of war would have been blamed for the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Loud cries would be ringing across the land that this never would have happened except for President Bush’s declaration of war. You can just hear the words and the music.

This political grandstanding is occurring in the shadow of the greatest danger our nation has ever faced. North Korea is not only rebuilding its nuclear capacity, it threatens to sell nuclear weapons to terrorist organizations, including those who planned the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Make no mistake about it. We could wake up some morning and find American cities in smoldering, radioactive ruins.

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