Bush And 9/11: What We Need To Know

By Joe Klein

George W. Bush's most memorable day as President was Sept. 14, 2001, when he stood in the rubble of the World Trade Center, holding a bullhorn in one hand, his other arm slung over the shoulder of a veteran fire fighter from central casting. Bush was pitch perfect that day--the common-man President, engaged and resolute. This is the image the Bush campaign is probably saving for the last, emotional moments of the election next fall. It is the memory the Republicans want you to carry into the voting booth. It is why the Republican Convention will be held in New York City this year. And it may also be why the White House has been so reluctant to cooperate with the independent commission investigating the events of Sept. 11, 2001.

The commission, which will finish its work in midsummer, on the eve of the conventions, will soon question the President about his response to the terrorist threat in the months before 9/11. I asked a dozen people last week--some intimate with the commission's thinking, some members of the intelligence community, some members of Congress who have investigated 9/11--what they would ask the President if they could. Their questions fell into three broad categories.

Why didn't you respond to the al-Qaeda attack on the U.S.S. Cole? The attack occurred on Oct. 12, 2000; 17 American sailors were killed. The Clinton Administration wanted to declare war on al-Qaeda. An aggressive military response was prepared, including special-forces attacks on al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan. But Clinton decided that it was inappropriate to take such dramatic action during the transition to the Bush presidency. As first reported in this magazine in 2002, Clinton National Security Adviser Sandy Berger and counterterrorism deputy Richard Clarke presented their plan to Condoleezza Rice and her staff in the first week of January 2001. Berger believed al-Qaeda was the greatest threat facing the U.S. as Clinton left office. Rice thought China was. What were President Bush's priorities? Was he aware of the Berger briefing? Did he consider an aggressive response to the bombing of the Cole or to the al-Qaeda millennium plot directed at Los Angeles International Airport--which was foiled on Dec. 14, 1999? Did he have any al-Qaeda strategy at all? Rice, who has not yet testified under oath, decided to review counterterrorism policy; the review wasn't completed until Sept. 4. A related question along the same lines: Why didn't you deploy the armed Predator drones in Afghanistan? The technology, which might have provided the clearest shot at Osama bin Laden before 9/11, was available early in 2001. But the CIA and the Pentagon squabbled about which agency would be in charge of pulling the trigger. The dispute wasn't resolved until after 9/11. Were you aware of this dispute, Mr. President? Why weren't you able to resolve it?

Indeed, the second category of questions revolves around the President's interest in and awareness of the al-Qaeda threat. As late as Sept. 10, after the assassination of Northern Alliance leader Ahmed Shah Massoud, Bush was asking in his national-security briefing about the possibility of negotiating with the Taliban for the head of bin Laden. "If he had studied the problem at all," an intelligence expert told me, "he would have known that was preposterous." As early as Aug. 6, Bush had been told that al-Qaeda was planning to strike the U.S., perhaps using airplanes. What was his response to that? How closely was he following the intelligence reports about al-Qaeda activity, which had taken an extremely urgent tone by late spring? Another intelligence expert proposed this question: "Did he ever ask about the quality of the relationship between the CIA and the FBI?" Obviously, the President couldn't be responsible for knowing that the FBI was tracking suspicious flight training in Arizona or that the CIA had an informant close to two of the hijackers, but was he aware of the friction between the two agencies? Was he aware that John Ashcroft had opposed increasing counterterrorism funding for the FBI?

Finally, there are the questions about the President's actions immediately after 9/11. Specifically, why did he allow planeloads of Saudi nationals, including members of the bin Laden family, out of the U.S. in the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attacks? Who asked him to give the Saudis special treatment? Was he aware that the Saudi Arabian government and members of the royal family gave money to charities that funded al-Qaeda?

It is easy to cast blame in hindsight. Even if Bush had been obsessed with the terrorist threat, 9/11 might not have been prevented. But the President's apparent lack of rigor--his incuriosity about an enemy that had attacked American targets overseas and had attempted an attack at home--raises a basic question about the nature and competence of this Administration. And that is not a question the Republicans want you to take to the polls in November.