Monday, April 26, 2004

Some grist for the 9/11 Commission mill

Hopefully the Worthless Commission will call in Paul Bremer when (if?) he gets back from Iraq after handing over the reins to whoever the reins eventually get handed over to this summer, if things go according to plan (as if they ever do).

Before 9/11 the nation wasn't blind to the peril it was in. In 1998 Congress told the Clinton administration to conduct a study of the nation's ability to defeat terrorists armed with weapons of mass destruction. An advisory panel that became known as the Gilmore commission was assembled and issued a series of annual reports. Its second, released in December 2000, asserted that "the United States has no coherent, functional national strategy for combating terrorism. . . . The organization of the Federal government's programs for combating terrorism is fragmented, uncoordinated, and politically unaccountable." The commission recommended that "the next President should develop and present to the Congress a national strategy for combating terrorism within one year of assuming office."

...A career diplomat, Bremer was President Reagan's ambassador-at-large for counterterrorism. A decade later he sat on the Gilmore commission. In 1999 another congressionally mandated panel, the National Commission on Terrorism, began a six-month study of America's capacity to prevent and punish acts of terrorism. "Seriously deficient," it would conclude. Bremer chaired this commission.

On February 26, 2001, the Robert R. McCormick Tribune Foundation opened a three-day conference on the theme "Terrorism: Informing the Public" at Cantigny, the colonel's estate in Wheaton. Bremer, who gave the keynote speech, recalled his work on the National Commission on Terrorism.

"We concluded that the general terrorist threat is increasing," Bremer said, "particularly because of a change in the motives of terrorist groups.

...The Bush administration had been in power just about a month at this point, but Bremer had already seen enough to draw some conclusions about it. He told the many journalists invited to the Cantigny conference to hold the White House's feet to the fire: "It is the media's responsibility, and an important one, though very uncomfortable for people in government, to put a very strong spotlight on the government's policies and practices on terrorism, especially given the current disorganization of the federal government's fight against terrorism. In this area, the federal government is in complete disarray. There's been remarkably little attention to the major recommendation the Gilmore Commission made for a substantial reorganization of the government's approach to terrorism. Journalists shouldn't let politicians get away with that.

"The new administration seems to be paying no attention to the problem of terrorism. What they will do is stagger along until there's a major incident and then suddenly say, 'Oh, my God, shouldn't we be organized to deal with this?' That's too bad. They've been given a window of opportunity with very little terrorism now, and they're not taking advantage of it. Maybe the folks in the press ought to be pushing a little bit."
  Chicago Reader article

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway, he might as well have said.

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