Missing the Point on 9-11

The 9-11 commission has a lot of people rethinking what the U.S. government was doing to protect this country prior to that day. The public has had the opportunity to watch many of the important decision makers answer questions about what they did -- or did not do -- to prevent attacks against the United States. Particular attention has been paid to Richard Clarke, the former counterterrorism chief in the White House, who has claimed, among other things, the Bush administration should have done more to prevent the attacks. News reports and media outlets are now pondering -- could Bush have done more to prevent Sept. 11? \nUnfortunately, this question misses the point of what Clarke has said -- the real question is not what happened before Sept. 11, but after. \nSome criticism of Bush, along with the Clinton Administration, is probably justified for what wasn't done before the attacks. Though I am not a huge Bush supporter, I think many of these accusations are not very fair. There can be many threats against the United States at any given moment and presidents must pick and choose which they want to concentrate on. Bush picked wrong, but there is no particular dishonor in that. Arguably, Clinton may have picked wrong as well. That is not necessarily a good reason to question his ability to handle the war on terror in the present. \nFor example, FDR did not clearly understand the threat posed by the Japanese before Pearl Harbor. Yet, with that mistake behind him, FDR was a strong and competent leader through World War II. To say Bush did not clearly grasp the threat of al Qaeda does not disqualify him from adjusting his thinking and carrying out an effective program against terrorism in the present. \nThe real question of ability isn't whether or not a president anticipated an unknown threat, but how they handle a known one. This is where there is room for serious criticism. After Sept. 11, Bush fully understood what al Qaeda was capable of and had the capacity to confront them. Clarke claims once Bush was presented with this new reality, he instead chose to concentrate on an unrelated threat -- Iraq. \nSept. 12, 2001, the president ordered his counterterrorism expert, Clarke, to look for "any shred" of connection with Saddam. Clarke explained al Qaeda was responsible, but Bush persisted that any link to Iraq should be explored. \nWhy should the president have insisted intelligence look for "any shred" of evidence when the great big chunks of evidence were already clear? The obvious implication is that even loose connections could be used to condemn Iraq. Eventually, discredited "shreds" of intelligence were used to sell the war to the American public.\nThis certainly paints a picture of a White House so fixated on Iraq it was combing through intelligence to find reasons to attack, even as smoke was still rising from the wreckage. \nThe U.S. only has so much manpower, so much money and so much credibility -- it needs to spend these in ways that will have the biggest bang for our buck. Why was the administration concentrating on Iraq instead of addressing our clear vulnerabilities? \nBush can be excused for not fully comprehending the danger posed by al Qaeda. But given the opportunity to learn from and correct mistakes, President Bush ignored the lessons of Sept. 11.