Who remembers the Hart-Rudman Commission? Hands? Bueller?

[trof]

Yeah, I didn't think so.
Hi it's just trof, beating a dead horse here.


Commission on National Security/21st Century was a participant or observer in the following events:

September 15, 1999: Bipartisan Commission Concludes Terrorist Attack Will Occur on US Soil, Killing Many

The first phase of the US Commission on National Security/21st Century, co-chaired by former Senators Gary Hart (D-CO) and Warren Rudman (R-NH), is issued. It concludes: “America will be attacked by terrorists using weapons of mass destruction and Americans will lose their lives on American soil, possibly in large numbers.”

January 31, 2001: Bipartisan Commission Issues Final Report on Terrorism, but Conclusions Are Ignored

The final report of the US Commission on National Security/21st Century, co-chaired by former Senators Gary Hart (D-CO) and Warren Rudman (R-NH), is issued. The bipartisan panel was put together in 1998 by then-President Bill Clinton and then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Hart and Rudman personally brief National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and Secretary of State Colin Powell on their findings. The report has 50 recommendations on how to combat terrorism in the US, but all of them are ignored by the Bush administration.

Shelved by White House - According to Hart, Congress will begin to take the commission’s suggestions seriously in March and April, and legislation is introduced to implement some of the recommendations. Then, “Frankly, the White House shut it down.… The president said, ‘Please wait, we’re going to turn this over to the vice president‘… and so Congress moved on to other things, like tax cuts and the issue of the day.”

The White House will announce in May that it will have Vice President Dick Cheney study the potential problem of domestic terrorism, despite the fact that this commission had just studied the issue for 2 1/2 years.

MUCH more: http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=commission_on_national_security/21st_century

Just think of the pain, suffering and money down the war rathole we could have avoided if Gore had not only just won the election (which he did) but had been INAUGURATED.

[salin]

1. I remember

and also weep.

[SharonAnn]

8. So do I.

[trof]

11. Yeah, when you think of what might have been.

Tragic.

[salin]

14. exactly!

side note: always great to "see" you, trof.

[annabanana]

2. This will never make it into the history books with Texas in charge...

So we'd damn well better bookmark it, right?

[blm]

3. I just referred to the Hart-Rudman Report on Global Terror in an exchange with a dumb GOP

who was defending Bush - they never even heard of it.

[bluestateguy]

6. And that is why these bipartisan commissions are stupid

They create the impression that things are getting done when all they are are self-edifying studies of a problem and some policy recommendations. These commissions also provide a way for washed up Washington establishmentarians to stay relevant.

Guess who has to approve those before they have the force of law?

Pause...

And that's why these commission reports are almost always quickly forgotten after a day or two of their much ballyhooed reports.

[bluestateguy]

4. Late January 2001

As I remember at that time the media was droning on and on about missing computer keys on White House computers and messy offices left by the Clintons on the way out.

And then for the next several months we were inundated with Gary Condit's sex life and shark attacks.

[Odin2005]

5. And the "Summer of the Sharks" that has LESS attacks...

than the year before.

[karynnj]

7. I do - which is why I thought Gary Hart would have made a great

"outside the box" choice for VP in 2004. Echoing Kerry's own strength in having warned about non-state terrorism and other types of international crime in the 1990s. (sort of like when Clinton selected a man - in many ways - like him - a fellow Southern, Conservative Democrat, and Baptist.) Yes, I know who Donna Rice was - but the Harts' marriage survived and by 2004 they had been married around 40 years. I later found that Kerry and he are friendly - Hart introduced Kerry in 2006 when Kerry gave his national security speech at Faneuil Hall.

The media would have had a fit because Kerry had not picked the Golden Boy, but the people had overwhelmingly picked Kerry over Edwards and in Hart, you would have someone genuinely ready if he had to become President - and they likely would have worked very well together.

I agree that Gore, who served with both Hart and Rudman would have taken their report seriously - because they are both capable, intelligent men who obviously put a lot of thought into the report.

[hootinholler]

9. But how would they have gotten the "New Pearl Harbor?"

I'd say Cheney was a quick study.

[Dawson Leery]

10. I do.

Had Gore taken his rightfully elected role as President, the world would be a better place right now.

[madinmaryland]

12. Presidential Daily Briefing of August 6th 2001: "bin Laden determined to strike in US"

No one after the day that DU was created was interested in the imminent threat of bin Laden.

[alp227]

13. Also, a week before 9/11/01, Hart gave a speech in Canada warning about terrorism

From the Sept. 5, 2001 Montreal Gazette: "Terror risk real: Hart"

web.archive.org/web/20011218002224/www.canada.com/montreal/story.asp?id={ED508362-1BF2-4F9A-912D-EDADDA9216B7}

(I can't hyperlink the whole URL, so copy-and-paste the URL instead.)

There is a strong likelihood the United States will be hit by a major terrorist strike in the coming 25 years that will inflict thousands of casualties and wreak major changes in American society, according to former U.S. senator and presidential hopeful Gary Hart.

Hart said yesterday the projection was made by experts consulted by a U.S. national security commission he recently chaired.

"The conclusion was that, for the first time since 1812, Americans will lose their lives in large number on American soil by terrorists using weapons of mass destruction," he said.