Not So Tough on Terror?
By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
President Bush's all-important terror-fighting credentials are taking a bruising this week.
Former President Clinton has revived charges that Bush didn't take the threat of terrorism seriously enough before Sept. 11.
And an intelligence report indicates that Bush's signature response to terror since the attacks -- invading Iraq -- has actually backfired.
The result: A potential erosion of Bush's strongest political suit -- at the worst possible moment for a White House already fearful of losing Republican majorities in Congress in November....
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...up until now, it's remained a mystery what exactly Bush said to the (9/11) commissioners when he grudgingly consented to an interview with them in the Oval Office, back in April of 2004....But yesterday afternoon, Democratic former commission member Richard Ben-Veniste dramatically broke his silence about that meeting in an interview with CNN's Blitzer. Here's the transcript (
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0609/25/sitroom.02.html)....And let's not forget: It was only a few weeks ago that Ron Suskind revealed in his book, "The One Percent Doctrine," just how cavalierly President Bush responded to being briefed on the al Qaeda threat, just a month before the attack...."The book's opening anecdote tells of an unnamed CIA briefer who flew to Bush's Texas ranch during the scary summer of 2001, amid a flurry of reports of a pending al-Qaeda attack, to call the president's attention personally to the now-famous Aug. 6, 2001, memo titled 'Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in US.' Bush reportedly heard the briefer out and replied: 'All right. You've covered your ass, now.'" (Washington Post book review)....
(MUCH MORE IN THIS COLUMN)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/linkset/2005/04/11/LI2005041100879.html
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