January 20, 2001, Bush took an oath to protect us from foreign enemies. The outgoing Clinton administration had warned Bush terrorist groups, and specifically al Qaeda, where our most serious foreign threat.
After Clinton’s warning, Bush downgraded our counter-terrorism program. For nine months he delayed scheduling a meeting on the al Qaeda threat. The meeting took place after Bush finished his month long August vacation. It was too late, al Qaeda struck one week later.
We now know, Bush the information to stop the attacks. We had reports that bin Laden wanted to strike inside the U.S., one plan called for using commercial airlines as bombs, agents were already in the U.S., and Middle Eastern nationals were taking pilot training courses but not interested in learning to land.
Maybe they were distracted planning to overthrow Saddam Hussain. Those discussions began Bush’s first week in office, far more quickly then the nine months they waited to discuss Clinton’s warning about al Qaeda.
Everyone in the intelligence community knew al Qaeda attacked on 9/11. But Bush’s top two Defense Department officials, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz, insisted Saddam had a hand in the attack. Bush himself pressured agency heads to find a connection between Iraq and 9/11. With no such evidence, Bush finally attacked al Qaeda in Afghanistan. Before finishing off al Qaeda, Bush turned our military loose on Iraq, the country they talked about that first week in office.
Whether it was their hatred for Clinton, obsession to overthrow Saddam Hussain, dreams of controlling the world’s oil, procrastination, or just general incompetence, the Bush administration blew it.
Could this be deja vu all over again? Rather than vacationing this year in Crawford, Bush is on his "Good Bye World Tour."
Meanwhile Russia and Georgia are at war. This is a serious situation. Both sides really hate each other and they have some serious weapons. Over 1,500 have died in the opening day of their war.
Shouldn’t Bush be booking a flight back to Washington? Is anyone thinking about how we should behave if Russia once again occupies Georgia? Please, don’t tell me it’s Cheney!