Keeping Secrets
Reading Scott’s discussion of how the UK went about uncovering the recent terror plot (and how the right is trying to lie about it), I was reminded of how difficult it is for three people to keep a secret, let alone 24 or more. Of course, that’s not to takeaway from the enormous hard work, and yes, luck, our cousins on the other side of the pond had this time. But the fact remains that keeping secrets just isn’t that easy.
One can’t expect 100%, certainly. But as I see it, without a doubt the most bizarre aspect of the 9/11 attacks were not that they were imagined and plotted but that they actually happened. Even assuming an incompetent CIA and FBI, there were many, many signs that summer and fall that something was up (start with the 9/11 commission report and work your way through Pretext to War, The One Percent Doctrine, and a slew of other books). But for some strange reason all those signs were missed ignored, failed to rise to the higher echelons. Of course, I would be the last person to suggest that George W. Bush, Condoleeza Rice, Paul Wolfowitz, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld were unspeakably, unforgivably, negligent by ignoring the clear warnings of the Clinton administration on Al Qaeda – complaining about all the attention being focused on “just one man;” snickering, “Okay, you’ve coverd your ass” when folks from CIA came to brief them.
Actually, I confess it. I just lied to you. I was one of the first to suggest that the Bush administration, through its utter incompetence, bears a heavy responsibility for the carnage of 9/11. I was saying so a few hours after the attacks to my friends from Finland who called to make sure that we were ok.
If nothing else, the exposure of the latest potential atrocity simply highlights how incompetent the Bushites were. No, they didn’t “let it happen” and it certainly wasn’t a black op to boost Bush in the polls.* It’s just that, well, Richard Clarke had been pushed aside, John O’Neill had quit in disgust to manage WTC security, Robert Mueller was the new kid on the block,and John Ashroft was proofreading an arrangement of “When the Eagle Soars” for seven kazoos and musical saw. Meanwhile, many others were simply ignored and let the obsessive, paranoid and quite essential monitoring of bin Laden’s activities drop.
That failure to pay attention to reality is a hallmark of the Bush administration.
*I know some commenters disagree, but you’ll first have to explain to me how, if this was some sort of nefarious Rovian plot, George Bush was caught on video during the attacks reading “My Pet Goat” to a classroom in Florida. The least we’d expect would be for Bush to be strutting around on in full Commander Codpiece regalia, not flitting in sheer panic all over the country.
No, folks, it was simple stupidity and negligence that enabled bin Laden to wreak havoc in the US – they should have been caught and they could have been if anyone up top had been paying attention. I’ll leave open the question as to whether Rove slapped his forehead on 9/11 and exclaimed, “Damn! Wish I’d thought of that!” Even if he didn’t – and frankly, I’ve always assumed that day Carl was probably cowering under a desk somewhere, overcome by the stench of fresh ca-ca in his pants and wouldn’t have it together to think of much of anything else – the fact remains that within hours of the carnage, the Bush administration treated the attacks as if it were a gift from God to fastlane the prep for an Iraq War and hasten their intended evisceration of the US Constitution.