Cheney’s 9/11 Chutzpah
By Larry Johnson on May 22, 2009 at 12:15 PM in Current Affairs
I really do not understand how Dick Cheney, who helped dismantle the counterterrorism office in the National Security Council in the early days of the Bush Administration, can take credit for protecting America when he, by his own arrogance, ignored warnings of an impending attack by Bin Laden’s troops in August 2001. He can insist sternly and forcefully that he is more trustworthy than Barack Obama in knowing how to deal with terrorists but he can’t run from this one fact–MORE AMERICANS DIED FROM TERRORIST ATTACKS DURING THE REIGN OF GEORGE BUSH AND DICK CHENEY THAN DIED DURING THE PRESIDENCIES OF KENNEDY, JOHNSON, NIXON, FORD, CARTER, REAGAN, BUSH I AND CLINTON COMBINED.
Chew on that for a bit. Cheney wants credit for no attacks inside the United States since 9-11. Swell. You want the credit for that. Sure. But you then deserve the blame for not doing your job to combat terrorism during your first 9 months in office.
Do you recall this report in the Christian Science Monitor on 6 September 2001?
These days Mr. Cheney is about as visible as a stealth bomber. He’s still in all the big West Wing meetings – and still has a close relationship with Mr. Bush. But in recent months he has acted more the role of traditional vice president – pep talks to local Republican clubs, funerals, and radio shows. Consider, too, his new assignment: leading a task force on domestic terrorism – important, but not at the center of the White House agenda.
I’m sure one troll or two will resurface my July 2001 op-ed in a bid to distract from my basic point. I have one simple comment–I held no government position at the time. Period. Dick Cheney was supposed to head a task force on domestic terrorism but it was not a high priority.
But he dropped the ball. Protecting America and Americans was not his priority. He did not start beating that drum until almost 3,000 Americans had been crushed, smashed to bits or incinerated on 9/11. But does he accept any responsibility for those lost lives. Hell, no!! He blames Bill Clinton and the pre 9/11 mentality while ignoring his own
Cheney’s speech yesterday reveals a display of chutzpah that is simply breathtaking. He trots out the 9/11 bogey man 25 times. Take a look:
Part of our responsibility, as we saw it, was not to forget the terrible harm that had been done to America and not to let 9/11 become the prelude to something much bigger and far worse. . . .
9/11 caused everyone to take a serious second look at threats that had been gathering for a while and enemies whose plans were getting bolder and more sophisticated. . . .
9/11 made necessary a shift of policy, aimed at a clear strategic threat: what the Congress called “an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.” From that moment forward, instead of merely preparing to round up the suspects and count the victims after the next attack, we were determined to prevent attacks in the first place.
These are just a few of the problems we had on our hands. And foremost on our minds was the prospect of the very worst coming to pass: a 9/11 with weapons of mass destruction.
For me, one of the defining experiences was the morning of 9/11 itself. As you might recall, I was in my office in the West Wing in that first hour, when radar caught sight of an airliner heading toward the White House at 500 miles per hour. That was Flight 77, the one that ended up hitting the Pentagon. . . .
In the years since, I’ve heard occasional speculation that I’m a different man after 9/11. I wouldn’t say that. But I’ll freely admit that watching a coordinated, devastating attack on our country from an underground bunker at the White House can affect how you view your responsibilities.
These are just a few of the problems we had on our hands. And foremost on our minds was the prospect of the very worst coming to pass: a 9/11 with weapons of mass destruction.
For me, one of the defining experiences was the morning of 9/11 itself. As you might recall, I was in my office in the West Wing in that first hour, when radar caught sight of an airliner heading toward the White House at 500 miles per hour. That was Flight 77, the one that ended up hitting the Pentagon. . . .
In the years since, I’ve heard occasional speculation that I’m a different man after 9/11. I wouldn’t say that. But I’ll freely admit that watching a coordinated, devastating attack on our country from an underground bunker at the White House can affect how you view your responsibilities.
We did not invent that authority. It’s drawn from Article II of the Constitution, and it was given specificity by Congress after 9/11 in a joint resolution authorizing “all necessary and appropriate force” to protect the American people.
Our government prevented attacks and saved lives through the Terrorist Surveillance Program, which let us intercept calls and track contacts between Al Qaida and persons inside the United States. The program was top secret, and for good reason, until the editors of the New York Times got it and put it on the front page.
After 9/11, the Times had spent months publishing the pictures and the stories of every single individual killed by Al Qaida on 9/11. Now here was that same newspaper publishing secrets in a way that could only help Al Qaida. It impressed the Pulitzer committee, but it damn sure didn’t serve the interests of our country or the safety of our people.
In the years after 9/11, our government also understood that the safety of the country required collecting information known only to the worst of the terrorists. And in a few cases, that information could be gained only through tough interrogations. . . .
It is a fact that only detainees of the highest intelligence value were ever subjected to enhanced interrogation. You’ve heard endlessly about waterboarding. It happened to three terrorists. One of them was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of 9/11, who has also boasted about his beheading of Daniel Pearl. . . .
I might add that people who consistently distort the truth in this way are in no position to lecture anyone about values. Intelligence officers of the United States were not trying to rough up some terrorists simply to avenge the dead of 9/11. We know the difference in this country between justice and vengeance. . . .
Keep in mind that these are hardened terrorists picked up overseas since 9/11. The ones that were considered low risk were released a long time ago. And among these, it turns out that many were treated too leniently, because they cut a straight path back to their prior line of work and have conducted murderous attacks in the Middle East. An estimated 14 percent of those released previously are believed to be back in the business of jihad. . . .
You don’t want to call them enemy combatants? Fine. Call them what you want; just don’t bring them into the United States. Tired of calling it a war? Use any term you prefer. Just remember: It is a serious step to begin unveiling some of the very policies that have kept our people safe since 9/11.
The United States of America was a good country before 9/11, just as we are today. List all the things that make us a force for good in the world — for liberty, for human rights, for the rational, peaceful resolution of differences — and what you end up with is a list of the reasons why the terrorists hate America.
If fine speech-making, appeals to reason, or pleas for compassion had the power to move them, the terrorists would long ago have abandoned the field. And when they see the American government caught up in arguments about interrogations or whether foreign terrorists have constitutional rights, they don’t stand back in awe of our legal system and wonder whether they had misjudged us all along.
Instead, the terrorists see just what they were hoping for: our unity gone, our resolve shaken, our leaders distracted. In short, they see weakness and opportunity.
What is equally certain is this: The broad-based strategy set in motion by President Bush obviously had nothing to do with causing the events of 9/11. But the serious way we dealt with terrorists from then on, and all the intelligence we gathered in that time, had everything to do with preventing another 9/11 on our watch. . . .
Yet having reserved for himself the authority to order enhanced interrogation after an emergency, you would think President Obama would be less disdainful of what his predecessor authorized after 9/11. It’s almost gone unnoticed that the president has retained the power to order the same methods in the same circumstances. . . .
If Americans do get the chance to learn what our country was spared, it’ll do more than clarify the urgency and the rightness of enhanced interrogations in the years after 9/11. It may help us to stay focused on dangers that have not gone away. Instead of idly debating which political opponents to prosecute and punish, our attention will return to where it belongs: on the continuing threat of terrorist violence and on stopping the men who are planning it.
For all the partisan anger that still lingers, our administration will stand up well in history, not despite our actions after 9/11, but because of them. And when I think about all that has come — has to come during our administration and afterward — the recriminations, the second-guessing, the charges of hubris — my mind always goes back to that moment.
To put things in perspective, suppose that, on the evening of 9/11, President Bush or I promised that, for as long as we held office — which was to be another 2,689 days — there would never be another terrorist attack inside this country. Talk about hubris; it would have seemed a rash and irresponsible thing to say. . . .
Of course, we made no such promise. Instead, we promised an all-out effort to protect this country. We said we would marshal all elements of our nation’s power to fight this war and to win it. We said we would never forget what had happened on 9/11, even if the day came when many others would forget. . . .
And even the most decisive victories can never take away the sorrow of losing so many of our own, all those innocent victims of 9/11 and the heroic souls who died trying to save them.
It is ironic that Cheney concludes by mentioning the “heroic souls who died trying to save them.” I know he means the firefighters and police who died at the scene in New York City, but the Bush Administration did nothing for the firefighters and police who suffered health affects after working at ground zero. In fact, the Bush Administration insisted the air at ground zero was swell.
Cheney talks a good game but conveniently ignores the fact that international terrorism grew dramatically as a result of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. The number of terrorist attacks in 2004 exceeded the number ever recorded since the U.S. Government started keeping track of the statistics starting in 1968.
Cheney is using the fear of terrorism to try to rally Americans to accept torture as an appropriate and valid defensive measure. He would prefer that Americans revel in ignorance of the law and dismiss the lessons of history by repeating the mantra of 9/11 as the ultimate excuse to justify the illegal and immoral conduct of the Bush Administration.
What is truly galling is that George Bush and Dick Cheney could have made a difference in preventing 9-11 if they had made combating terrorism a priority. Here is what Milt Bearden and I wrote on November 7, 2000:
The Clinton Administration has shot its bolt on the terrorist problem with small effect, and no last minute show of force will change the record. A new administration can start afresh with a more sharply defined set of terrorism goals – Mughniyeh and bin Laden and their protectors for starters – and bring the full, coordinated force of American diplomatic, military, and intelligence capabilities to bear on the problem.
After 8 years of Bush and Cheney Bin Laden is still on the run and their radical Islamic supporters are resurgent in Afghanistan. Heck of a job, Dick.
by Ronald Scott
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