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February 15, 2005

Malicious Negligence

Robert Scheer at the LA Times does a spectacular job of laying out the implications of the Bush Administration's refusal to acknowledge the many pre-9/11 warnings.

And let's be clear: The failure to fully disclose what is known about the 9/11 tragedy is not some minor bureaucratic transgression. Not since the Soviets first detonated an atomic bomb more than half a century ago has a single event so affected decision-making in this country, yet the main questions as to how and why it happened remain mostly unanswered.

Even worse, what we do know calls into question our government's explanation that a diabolical international terrorist conspiracy exploited our liberal, naive society. What has emerged, instead, is a portrait of an often bumbling terrorist gang allowed to wreak havoc because the top tiers of the administration were so indifferent to the alarms, which former CIA Director George Tenet described so graphically: "The system was blinking red."

Had the business-friendly administration put safety first and ordered a full complement of air marshals into the air, over the obscene objections of airlines loath to give up paid seats, nearly 3,000 people might not have died that day. And had the president of the United States taken some time from his epic ranch vacation that August to order a nationwide airport alert, two bloody wars abroad, as well as an all-out assault on civil liberties in this country, probably would not have happened.

Ignoring those warnings was an unimaginable act of malicious neglegence on the part of the Bush administration. No, I don't think it was just general incompetence. I can't imagine there being a level of incompetence so great that it could miss the importance of the warnings given to it by the Clinton administration (including a plan for dealing with Al Qaeda - as confirmed now by recently released 9/11 Commission testimony), 52 warnings given to the FAA and the subtly titled PDB "Bin Laden Determined to Strike In US." You pretty much have to not care what happens to miss that many alerts.

And, of course, the White House managed to keep all of this information hidden from the public until conventiently after the election. It's not the least bit surprising - it's just how they work. But it IS distressing. We're stuck with these malefactors for another 4 years. Given how much damage has already been done - just as a result of their ignoring the warnings of an impending Al Qaeda attack - I don't to try and guess what might happen next.

Posted by thorswitch at February 15, 2005 05:36 PM

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