I had a chance, last evening, to sit down with the CIA’s Office of Inspector General post 9/11 report, here… (PDF) [1]
The Democrats in Congress, forced its release in the intelligence budget for fiscal year 2008.
After reading the report, (Actually, the de-classified executive summary) I begin to suspect that they’re going to regret that decision, as they have regretted all their choices involving The polarization of the war on terrorism.
The report places the blame firmly on the CIA during the Clinton years. It says for one thing, the counterterrorism funds and personnel were actually expended on other agency priorities , as a comparative between fiscal year 1997, and fiscal year 2001.
Of course the question becomes were these funds and resources re-purposed at the direction of the Clinton White House? It seems clear to me, based on my reading, that they were. It also seems clear to me,in my reading, but Mr. Clinton and Madeleine Albright, are exposed as liars by this report. They lied to the American people when they said that they had handed over a detailed plan on al-Qaida to President Bush. The fact of the matter is, there was no such plan. There was no substantial analysis, there was no intention of dealing with BinLaden at all, through the whole of the Clinton administration.
As to the left, and their claims that we should be engaging in more diplomacy to solve the problem of the Islamo fascists, the report speaks directly to this, saying that the late 1990’s… the second Clinton term…
…may have been the high-water mark for diplomatic pressure on the Taliban. The outside pressure continued. But the Taliban appeared to adjust and learn to live with it,”
engaging such people and diplomacy, I said at the time, and continue to say now, will prove to be fruitless. Indeed but worse than fruitless, it will be counterproductive…. as the flurry of diplomacy, capped by the attacks of 9/11 will show to any sane individual. The military option was the only option to pursue. It should have been pursued in the late nineteen nineties, which would have prevented the 9/11 attacks. Clinton failed to do that.
I think, therefore, rather than being a political boon that the Democrats were obviously seeking, it ends up being a political boom… as in, it blew up in their faces. The explosion will be particularly devastating to the candidacy of Hillary Rodham Clinton… Who, by her own words, was half the presidency, back then. (“We are the president”)