by Alan Colmes
The Bush administration decided it didn't want anything to do with this report, opting instead to ask Dick Cheney to study the issue four months after the report was issued and to give FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, responsibility for coordinating an effort. FEMA was headed by Joseph Albaugh, who just happened to be Bush 43's former campaign manager.
Hmmm. . . how do you like that? A Homeland Security Department! Proposed even before "The 'War' on Terror" by a bipartisan group. And yet Republicans had no trouble shamelessly taking credit for it during the 2002 midterm elections.
As blase as the Bush 43 administration was about homeland security prior to September 11, it was actively disinterested in having a commission figure out what happened after the attacks. Were there some things they didn't want us to know? After 9/11, victims' families wanted information about what led to the deaths of their loved ones. Instead of a proactive commission to investigate what happened, they got a homeland security bill that sought to give the Eli Lilly company relief from lawsuits by parents of autistic children. These lawsuits involved Lilly's alleged use of a mercury-based vaccine preservative. Lilly, by the way, contributed $1.6 million during the 2002 campaign cycle, with 75 percent of that money going to Republicans. Mitch Daniels, then Bush's budget director, worked for Lilly for a decade before joining the president's team in 2001, and Lilly chairman and CEO Sidney Taurel was appointed to the president's Homeland Security Advisory Council. Senate majority leader Bill Frist, long before his post-Lott ascent to Republican stardom, was another beneficiary of Lilly's largess, and was instrumental in pushing relief for Lilly in the Homeland Security Bill.
The political trail of the Homeland Security Bill is a beauty. This idea was initially put forth by Senator Joe Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut. The administration rejected the bill repeatedly. But when they realized that various departments were not working well together, Republicans gutted the bill of collective bargaining protections for government employees and presented it as their own. But that wasn't enough. During the 2002 election, this bill was wielded as a club against Senator Max Cleland of Georgia who, partially as a result of this is, unfortunately, now ex-Senator Cleland. His opponent, now Senator Saxby Chambliss, ran an ad impugning Cleland's commitment to homeland security, saying, "Since July, Max Cleland has voted against the president's homeland security efforts 11 times."
Chambliss's campaign team conveniently left out that Senator Cleland supported a Department of Homeland Security before Bush 43 did. And he voted for legislation to establish the new agency when it cleared committee earlier that year. When the administration eliminated labor protections, he opposed the bill. As a result, he was accused of being unconcerned about national security. I suppose national security means reducing workers' rights.
Once there was agreement on the Homeland Security Bill, the Republicans slipped in seven provisions in the dead of night that hadn't been there at the twilight's previous gleaming. One stealth provision, for example, gave immunity to companies that make faulty antiterrorism equipment. Another, thankfully removed because of the resulting furor, gave protection from lawsuits to pharmaceutical companies like Lilly. Can someone please explain to me how protecting pharmaceutical companies helps us find bin Laden? Maybe they're afraid if we find him and drug him, he'll sue. I challenged Oliver North on this issue on Hannity & Colmes in November 2002 and asked him how he could defend this sneaky maneuver. He offered the "they all do it" defense:
COLMES: Do you support it?
NORTH: Well, first of all, there's nothing sneaky about it. Second of all, I'm shocked, absolutely shocked, that a member of a Congress in any party would put pork . . .
COLMES: Oh, so your argument is they do it, too. That's your argument.
NORTH: No, I'm telling you this is the way this town works. This is the Capitol Building that's right behind me here. That's the way this town works . . .
According to the good colonel, this was just "business as usual" in a government town, and that made it okay. I'm waiting for the next time he defends a Democratic Congress doing the same thing.
The Republicans played a linguistic game. They name something "The Patriot Act." If you have the temerity to oppose it, how dare you call yourself a "Patriot"? If Max Cleland doesn't like the revised "Homeland Security Bill," that must prove that he doesn't care about the protection of America. I'm surprised the Republicans didn't also get behind the "Conservatives Love America and Liberals Don't Act," the "George Bush Is the Commander in Chief and If You Criticize Him You're Going to Hell Act," and the "Tom Daschle Is Satan Act." Liberals might consider "Liberals Know Better Than Conservatives What's Good for the Country Act," and the "We Don't Need a Word to Prove We Have Compassion Act."
Bush 43 balked for more than a year at creating a commission to investigate the intelligence failures leading to September 11. When the joint House-Senate intelligence committee asked for information about the Saudi money flow, Bush 43, FBI director Robert Mueller, and Attorney General John Ashcroft refused to declassify the information. Perhaps they didn't want too close a look at the financial links between the Saudis and terrorism, because it could have hampered the flow of oil and their effort to utilize Saudi land for staging areas in the upcoming war against Iraq.
Protecting industry seemed to be a priority of the Bush 43 administration, at the expense of the truth and of holding big business accountable. There was much fear that the September 11 attacks would destroy the airline industry. Bush 43's press secretary, Ari Fleischer, informed the American public that the hijackers purposely used box cutters and plastic knives because regulations allowed those instruments through security. But the truth is that box cutters were not allowed by the airlines, which were in charge of security on September 11. "Airlines failed to enforce existing security guidelines on Sept. 11 that required airport screeners to confiscate box cutters from passengers," reported the Associated Press on November 11, 2002. The AP went on to report, "The manual for security screeners was issued by the airlines' trade groups to comply with FAA regulations and was in effect at the time of the terror attacks. The document lists box cutters and pepper spray as items not allowed past security checkpoints. Screeners were told to call supervisors if either item were to be found."
So why were we led to believe that box cutters were permitted? It would have cost airlines billions of dollars and certain bankruptcy if the story were otherwise. As the New York Times pointed out:
Most prominent, the measure includes a section inserted by House Republican leaders that will limit the liability of airport screening companies for any negligence they may have committed in allowing box cutters aboard the planes that day.... "Why would the House Republicans give the screening companies a get-out-of-jail free card at the last minute?" asked Kristen Breitweiser [who lost her husband in the September 11 attacks] . . . who has been considering a lawsuit against the screeners.
When the administration was finally dragged kicking and screaming to appoint the commission sought by Breitweiser and other aggrieved families, it chose former secretary of state Henry Kissinger as its chairman. His calling card was secrecy, and yet he was chosen to lead a commission that was to unearth secrets. Frank Rich of the New York Times pointed out that Kissinger's first act as head of this commission was to keep secret the name of his firm's client list, which might have posed a conflict of interest. Columnist Molly Ivins wrote that he offered up "a two-lie answer" when he said that law firms aren't required to reveal the names of their clients. The problems with that answer are (1) Kissinger Associates isn't a law firm; and (2) law firms do have to legally disclose clients if lobbying is involved. But this is consistent behavior for the man who was complicit in prolonging the Vietnam War by secretly expanding it to Cambodia and Laos; who secretly helped to arrange a coup to overthrow the Chilean government in 1973 to replace a democratically elected leader with a brutal dictator, and who, along with President Gerald Ford, secretly gave President Suharto of Indonesia t
he go-ahead to invade East Timor in 1975, resulting in the death of two hundred thousand people.
This was the man who was going to shed openness and sunlight on what our government knew and didn't know concerning September 11, 2001. At the time of his appointment, Kissinger's ability to travel the world had been compromised, as he feared some countries would call for his arrest. Chilean courts, for example, wanted him to testify about his role in the 1973 coup, as did French authorities, who were concerned about the disappearance of French citizens in Chile. When the Shah of Iran asked our country to give secret aid to the Kurds in northern Iraq, Kissinger agreed, but when the Shah made a deal with Saddam Hussein, all bets were off, and thirty-five thousand abandoned Kurds were slaughtered while two hundred thousand became refugees.
What's next, appointing Winona Ryder as national security advisor?
Kissinger did agree to sever ties with any clients deemed conflicts of interest, and he claimed he represented no Middle Eastern governments. But as it turned out, push met shove, and Kissinger resigned from the commission because he didn't want to disclose the names of his clients. Correct me if I'm wrong, but shouldn't this have been discussed and agreed to before the appointment and attendant controversy? But then, nothing like a little delay in a commission the administration didn't want in the first place. Kissinger's resignation followed on the heels of the departure of the commission's deputy chairman, former Maine senator George Mitchell. Mitchell didn't want to sever ties with his law firm and realized he could not make the time commitment necessary to do an effective job.
A fair, honest, and nonpolitical commission would force the United States to examine its own policies, actions, and internal failures. A truly great nation is strong enough to withstand a candid assessment and should be able to admit when it's wrong.
A year after September 11, 2001, former senators Hart and Rudman issued another report, compiled by a bipartisan group that included two former secretaries of state, two former chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and former directors of the CIA and FBI, among other leading authorities. It said, in part:
A year after September 11, America remains dangerously unprepared to prevent and respond to a catastrophic terrorist attack on U.S. soil... a war with Iraq could consume virtually all the nation's attention and command the bulk of the available resources. While 50,000 federal screeners are being hired at the nation's airports to check passengers, only the tiniest percentage of containers, ships, trucks, and trains that enter the United States each day are subject to examination—and a weapon of mass destruction could well be hidden among this cargo.
Using history as a guide, you'd think that another Hart-Rudman report would have gained a bit more credence with the Bush administration. But the talk about airport, border, and port security was overshadowed by talk of Iraq, as if the death of Saddam Hussein would make us all sleep better at night.
In a March 16, 2003, editorial, just days before our invasion of Iraq, the New York Neivsday pointed out that while 95 percent of our foreign trade arrives by sea, just 2 percent of the 6 million shipping containers that arrive at our ports annually are inspected.
The News went on to report that the Coast Guard says it will take $1.4 billion to secure our ports immediately, but that Congress, the same august body run by a party claiming to have the market cornered on understanding our national security needs, has allocated only $318 million to this effort.
Instead of heeding well-thought-out warnings, we had an administration living up to its cowboy image. It issued a policy alternately known as National Security Presidential Directive (NSPD) 17 and Homeland Security Presidential Directive 4, calling for the possible first use of nuclear weapons and for preemptive strikes on countries we considered threats, even if they had not yet done anything overtly threatening. This was a radical change in our way of doing business—the idea that we'd go after countries we thought were developing nuclear weapons and might want to harm us. If I thought you might want to hurt me, and decided to preemptively slap you upside the head, you might want to get an attorney and would win in court.
And why is it acceptable for some countries to dream of a nuclear future, and not others? Pakistan, for example, never signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and is believed to have provided nuclear assistance to North Korea. But our shotgun marriage with Pakistan, consummated after September 11, renders its nuclear program of little import to us. For that matter, why should the United States be allowed to have nuclear weapons and be the arbiter of which other nations are permitted such a luxury? If the answer is that we are the world's policeman, does that mean our philosophy is might makes right?
When North Korea announced that it was restarting a nuclear reactor that was capable of producing weapons-grade plutonium, it underscored some disturbing questions and contradictions: why we did we rev up the guns of war against Iraq because it wanted nuclear capability, but go out of our way to state that we didn't want war with North Korea, which already has the capability and, like Iraq, is guilty of years-long agreement violations? North Korea also expelled inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency, moved fresh fuel rods to the power plant storing the reactor, removed UN monitoring seals and cameras from nuclear facilities, and refused to heed warnings from Japan, China, Russia, South Korea, and the European Union. And guess whom conservatives blamed for North Korea's actions? That's right, Bill Clinton. After all, Clinton is responsible for every world crisis.
When Bush 41's last secretary of state, Lawrence Eagleburger, appeared on Hannity & Colmes in early 2003, I challenged him on Bush 43's actions and how they might have contributed to North Korea's behavior, and on the notion that Iraq was a diversion from a more imminent danger:
COLMES: I would argue that George W. Bush has pushed North Korea to the brink, that the 1994 agreement worked, that indeed, as Colin Powell stated on This Week, Clinton had a declaratory policy toward North Korea. He began to—he actually was poised to attack, if necessary, at the same time he was conducting negotiations. Yet, President Bush comes in now, refers to them as an "axis of evil," says "I hate Kim Jong-II." He cuts off oil shipments that were agreed to under the 1994 agreement. And he pulls out of the ABM Treaty, forcing North Korea into a situation, which is where we are today. Didn't any of President Bush's actions that I just suggested have anything to do with what North Korea's doing?
EAGLEBURGER: You could make that argument if you want, but I'm afraid I don't buy much of it. Look, the fact of the matter is, you know, if you want to cast this in terms of, you know, looking for ways in which we have contributed to the problem, instead of looking at the base of the problem, be my guest. . . .
Do you know why they're doing what they're doing now?
Because they see us tied up with the Iraqi situation. . . . And they see this as a great time to flex their muscles.
COLMES: Well, then wouldn't that be an argument that Iraq is a diversion, that we are misdirected at Iraq, that instead of looking at Iraq, we should really take seriously what's going on in North Korea? And you've just made the argument that this obsession that President Bush has with Iraq could be causing us damage in other parts of the world, Korea being Exhibit A.
EAGLEBURGER: Nice try.
COLMES: I'm just reflecting what you said.
EAGLEBURGER: ... if you're saying we can't walk and chew gum at the same time, again, the fact of the matter is we've had a problem with Iraq. Now all of a sudden, you're saying that well, we can't do two things at once. Maybe we, in fact, can't. I will have to see.
A few minutes later I quoted Warren Christopher, another former secretary of state, which seemed to cause Mr. Eagleburger to back off the "walk and chew gum at the same time" position:
COLMES: Here's what he said. He said, "My experience tells me that we cannot mount a war against Iraq and still maintain the necessary policy focus on North Korea and international terrorism."
You know, is he—does he not know whereof he speaks?
EAGLEBURGER: No, I think he's got a good point.
First Eagleburger argued in favor of Bush policies, but then he agreed with Christopher. Do you want to agree with your party, or makes sense?
"The'War' on Terror": Failure
Many Democrats have been shy about confronting this administration on its conduct of "The 'War' on Terror." They think the debate is untouchable. Here we had Iraq and North Korea center stage, reports of al Qaeda cells still in the United States, and plenty of evidence, in addition to the Hart-Rudman report, that "The 'War' on Terror" has been a failure. As Time magazine reported in July 2003, almost two years after the September 11 attacks, the United States was spending $1 billion a month to keep ten thousand troops in Afghanistan to prop up Afghanistan's new president, Hamid Karzai, who additionally required a retinue of U.S. taxpayer-financed bodyguards to protect him from his own people. The San Diego Tribune reported on December 12, 2002, "In November, the Afghan police killed two students who were part of a demonstration protesting the lack of electricity and running water in their dorms." The United Nations relief agency UNICEF reported in October 2001 that half of Afghani children were malnourished and a quarter died before the age of five.
