Posted on 09/22/2005 12:50:55 PM PDT by Uncle Joe Cannon
Bush: Weak terror response led to 9/11
Sep 22, 2005, 19:00 GMT
WASHINGTON, DC, United States (UPI) -- President Bush said withdrawing from Iraq would be a mistake that would embolden terrorists just as U.S. responses to other attacks led to 9/11 hijackings.
Speaking Thursday at the Pentagon after an update on the war on terror, Bush said a pullback would be seen as weakness and make the United States less safe.
'The terrorists saw our response to the hostage crisis in Iran, the bombings in the Marine barracks in Lebanon, the first World Trade Center attack, the killing of American soldiers in Somalia, the destruction of two U.S. embassies in Africa and the attack on the USS Cole,' Bush said. 'The terrorists concluded that we lacked the courage and character to defend ourselves and so they attacked us.'
It was the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, carried out by al-Qaida operatives, that led Bush to launch the war on terror with an attack on Afghanistan, where al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden had been given sanctuary. Bush links the fighting in Iraq with the war on terror.
The president said the plan is to follow a strategy of making political gains in the affected counties, while training local personnel to assume security operations.
No, I expect that those who expected Clinton to do whatever they expected him to do between the time of the Cole bombing and the end of his presidency, should also have expected Bush to do something similar between the time of his inauguration and 9/11.
You forget that Clinton had 7.5 years of intel, as well as OBL offered to him on a silver platter by Sudan... Bush had, at the most, 6 months. So, your rationale is extremely misguided.
Finally!
You're saying Bush wasn't privy to the intel that Clinton had?
I actually think actions speak louder than words, so I am fine with GWB going on the offense against terrorism abroad but allowing freedom of expression / criticism here. What I don't think we should do is mistake this Administration's determination to fight and, most importantly, clear and correct identification of the threat - e.g., the following from VP Cheney:
"Terrorists were at war with our country long before 2001. And for many years, they were the ones on the offensive. They grew bolder in their belief that if they killed Americans, they could change American policy. In Beirut in 1983, terrorists killed 241 of our service members. Thereafter, U.S. forces withdrew from Beirut. In Mogadishu in 1993, terrorists killed 19 American soldiers. Thereafter, U.S. forces withdrew from Somalia. The decade of the '90s saw many more attacks: the bombing at the World Trade Center in 1993; the murders at the Saudi Arabian National Guard Training Center in Riyadh in 1995; the killings at the Khobar Towers in 1996; the simultaneous bombings of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998; the attack on the USS Cole in 2000, which cost the lives of some 17 American sailors.
Over time, the terrorists came to believe that they could strike America with relative impunity. There was, among policy makers, a tendency to treat terror attacks as individual criminal acts, to be handled primarily through law enforcement. Consider the example of Ramzi Yousef, who participated in and perpetuated the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993. The U.S. government tracked him down, arrested him, and got a conviction. After he was sent to serve a 240-year sentence in a federal prison, some might have thought, case closed. But we now know that behind that one man, Ramzi Yousef, was a growing network with operatives inside and outside the United States, waging war against our country. That 1993 attack was probably the first al Qaeda attack on the U.S. homeland.
Six people died in the '93 attack on the World Trade Center. Eight years later, the casualties ran into the thousands. We know to a certainty that terrorists will kill as many innocent people as they possibly can, limited only by the means at their disposal. We know, as well, from the training manuals we found in Afghanistan and from the interrogations of terrorists we have captured that they are doing everything they can to gain the ultimate weapons: chemical, biological, radiological, and even nuclear weapons. Should they ever acquire such weapons, they would use them without any constraint of reason or morality. Instead of losing thousands of lives, we might lose tens or even hundreds of thousands of lives as the result of a single attack, or a set coordinated of attacks.
Remembering what we saw on 9/11, and knowing the nature of these enemies, we have as clear a responsibility as could ever fall to government: We must do everything in our power to keep terrorists from gaining weapons of mass destruction.
This urgent responsibility has required, above all, a shift in America's national security strategy. There are certain moments in history when the gravest threats reveal themselves. And in those moments, the response of our government must be swift, and it must be right.
September 11th has been aptly compared to December 7, 1941 -- another day in our history that brought sudden attack, national emergency, and the beginning of a sustained conflict. Perhaps a closer analogy can be drawn, not to the days of Franklin Roosevelt and World War II, but to the decisions that faced Harry Truman at the outset of the Cold War.
Within a few years, after Germany and Japan surrendered, Truman and his advisers saw the rise of new dangers. Imperial communism presented a challenge of global reach, demanding a comprehensive, long-term response on many fronts. President Truman made clear at the outset that the United States recognized the danger, and that -- for the sake of future generations, we would face it squarely. In a short time, our government created the architecture of national security we know today: the Department of Defense, the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Council. To defend ourselves and free Europe, the United States helped to found NATO. To build and strengthen new democracies, our government led in the reconstruction of Japan, and devoted the present-day equivalent of over $100 billion to European assistance through the Marshall Plan. And when aggression occurred on the Korean Peninsula, it was President Truman's decision and America's sacrifice that saved South Korea.
All those early commitments, made by one President and carried forward by eight of his successors, helped to bring victory in the Cold War, and unprecedented success for the cause of freedom. In this new century, facing new dangers, the commitments we make will also be decisive. President Bush has recognized this from the beginning. And by the strategy he has set for our government, we will overcome the threats of our own time, and, as the President has said, advance the cause of freedom and the peace that freedom brings."
January 14, 2004 - Remarks by the Vice President
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/01/20040114-7.html
Well I guess I did miss the point about expectations. My mother used to tell us "never expect ANYTHING and that way you will never be disappointed." She was right. I remember them doing a story on the people in one of the cities in MS hit hard by Katrina. They used what equipment they had between them and they cleard the debris and made piles...the were cleaning up the place and doing what they could for each other...pulling together with the great ole American spirit this country was built upon.
Yes, if you EXPECT ghe Gov to do everything for you you become a prisoner. No thanks...I'd rather get out on my own and make and do as much as I can for myself and my family.
Thanks!
Thank you for documenting what I and others who actually know what's going on knew, that President Bush has said this same thing time and again.
The person who made such an ill-informed comment about "inadvertant" most likely took a cue from the addle-brained Ann Coulter who just said if Roberts turns out to be a conservative judge after all (she must finally see that he is) it will be because President Bush "inadvertantly" selected such, not deliberately.
Perhaps you have missed the numerous times (see some examples above) where GWB has basically said the same thing - where do you get your news?
WOO HOO!
FINALLY!
You're welcome - as a side note, I certainly hope Ann is wrong about Roberts - but now that you mentioned her, doesn't someone have to post a picture? I like the one where she's shooting the handgun ; )
See posts # 73, 205, 254, and 265 (that I just put up) for examples of THE SAME EXACT idea, proving that this Administration gets it, but also that the public doesn't (yet ; )
Yes, that's correct. "Inadvertent" as in "Oops, you think I did what??"
But then sometimes Coulter and I forget -- Dubya Bush is always about Einsteinian "strategery" to some of you folks.
I understand the meaning of inadvertant and all evidence (look up "all") is that President Bush speaks and makes decisions deliberately, not inadvertantly.
Facts still matter.
O.K. truce then - what would you say to liberals who want to cut BOTH the F-22 Raptor and Joint Strike Fighter programs, thinking our current fighters can take on any imaginable threat for the next 30 years?
Of course I don't agree with this Administration 100% on everything, but I do when it comes to the #1 foreign policy question of the day - terrorism. It's not just the President, but his top advisors "get it" too:
Q But here's what I'm saying - you had a 30-month period leading up 9/11 in which you had fewer attacks than the 30 months afterwards, when you have this war against them.
DR. RICE: Ed, I think that's the wrong way to look at it, with all due respect. I think you have to look back to the '80s, and most certainly the '90s, when what was happening is the terrorist attacks were getting bolder, they were getting more imaginative, they were getting more daring.
So you have the attack in '93 against the World Trade Center. You then have the attack in 1998, against the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Then you have the attack against the Cole. Then you have 9/11, which is a spectacular and devastating attack that, by the way, was aimed at decapitating us. That was an act of war, going after the Pentagon and going after, perhaps, the Capitol or the White House. These attacks were getting bolder and they were getting more daring, and that's because the terrorists were getting a sense of inevitability of their victory. We were not aggressively going after them. They believed that they were going to win. They saw us cut and run in Somalia. They go all the way back to the fact that the Marines left Beirut after the bombing of the barracks. They believed that if we took casualties we would not respond. And what they've been surprised by is the fact that this has this time has been a launching of an all-out war against them.
And, yes, they're going to continue to try to attack, they're going to succeed sometimes; but they are going to be defeated. And as the President said, you cannot fight this war on the defensive. We can't sit back here and try to defend the United States, or we will not be the country, the open country that we know and love. So we are on the attack against them. They know that this is all-out war, and they're pulling out the stops.
March 28, 2004 - Dr. Condoleezza Rice Discusses the War on Terror on "60 Minutes"
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/03/20040328.html
Sudan apparently offered to turn bin Ladin over to Clinton - we unfortunately continued to treat this as a law enforcement issue and decided we did not have enough evidence that would hold up in court - ever heard of the 9/11 Commission?
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