Debating 9/11: Democrats Break Their Silence

After George W. Bush campaigned for Republican candidates in California earlier this month by claiming that Democrats were leaving the nation vulnerable to terrorist attacks, Harry Reid, the Democratic leader in the Senate, responded by saying Bush ignored warnings of an al-Qaeda attack “months before 9/11.” Reid countered the President’s charge with a relevant point about recent history, yet it is remarkable that few Democrats have spoken in a similar way when confronting claims about their weakness in dealing with terrorism. Recent developments suggest, however, that Democrats are now more likely to discuss the history of security failures before 9/11.

Since the Congressional election campaign of 2002, G.O.P. candidates have pummeled Democrats with claims that President Bush was tough on terrorists and did a better job than Democrats in keeping the country safe. This message constituted the Republicans’ most potent appeal to voters in the 2004 presidential contest. In the current campaigns for the House and Senate, Bush understands that the charge about Democratic softness represents the best card he can pull from his rather limited hand of election arguments. The President seems almost invulnerable when he speaks of Republican superiority on security issues, because Democrats rarely dispute the claim directly. Few have pointed out, as Harry Reid did, that the Bush administration failed to respond to serious warning signals during its first eight and a half months in Washington.

The revelations in Bob Woodward’s new book, State of Denial, have given Democrats new evidence to criticize Bush’s handling of national security before 9/11. Woodward reports that CIA director George Tenet and his counter-terrorism deputy, J. Cofer Black, asked for an urgent meeting with Condeleezza Rice, Bush’s national security adviser back in 2001. Tenet and Black expressed alarm in their discussions with Rice on July 10 of that year, because intelligence intercepts suggested that al-Qaeda was planning an imminent attack on the United States. Condoleezza Rice listened politely and then, according to Woodward, gave them the “brush-off.”

Bob Woodward’s report on the July meeting may have provoked Senator Harry Reid’s charge that the Bush administration ignored warnings before 9/11, but plenty of other evidence appeared in the public record long before State of Denial turned up in the bookstores. During the election campaign of 2004, information about the George W. Bush’s passive reaction to a daily briefing of August 6, 2001 circulated widely. The title of that report, “Bin Laden Determined to Strike In US,” should have alarmed the president. Michael Moore’s movie of 2004, “Fahrenheit 9/11” drew attention to this report and showed close-ups of FBI documents dated July 10, 2001 that indicated students of Osama bin Laden were attending civil aviation universities. Additionally, Moore’s film introduced audiences to videotape showing a dazed-looking president remaining in a Florida classroom with school children for nearly seven minutes after his Chief of Staff reported that a second plane had hit the World Trade Center and the nation was under attack. Critics say the president should have left the scene immediately. The schoolhouse where he sat could have been a terrorist target, and quick decisions needed to be made about shooting down commercial airliners. It was not the moment to take in a slow reading of “The Pet Goat.”

Richard Clarke, head of anti-terrorism under Clinton and in the early period of George W. Bush’s administration, also provided the Democrats with ammunition before the 2004 elections. Clarke’s book, Against All Enemies, faulted both administrations for failing to prevent the 9/11 tragedy, but its criticism of the Republican administration was especially damning. Clarke noted that Clinton’s people responded vigorously after the discovery of a terrorist plot to disrupt the millennium celebrations. Officials in the Clinton administration quickly alerted authorities. Their efforts contributed to the capture of a man at the border with Canada who aimed to blow up the LA airport. Clarke says he asked for a cabinet-level meeting around the time of the 2001 inauguration to deal with al-Qaeda’s threats, but leaders in the Bush administration put him off. Bush and his advisers were obsessed with Saddam Hussein and Iraq. The Bush Administration demoted Clarke, put his anti-terrorism plans on the back-burner, and showed little interest in Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda before 9/11.

All of this information was in the hands of the Democrats at the time of the 2004 elections, yet they made little of it. In the presidential and local campaigns, Republicans effectively promoted George W. Bush as a muscular and fast-acting protector of the nation, and they portrayed Democrats as wimps who could leave the nation vulnerable to terrorist attacks if they took control of the White House and Congress. Democrats gave Republicans the security issue by default, and it is not surprising that many Republican candidates capitalized on the opportunity left open to them.

Oddly enough, a movie created for television has helped Democrats to break their relative silence on the question of the Bush team’s security weaknesses before September 11. ABC-Television’s broadcast of a docudrama, “The Path to 9/11,” awakened Democrats to the risk of responding passively to the Republicans’ bragging about their successes against terrorists. ABC’s story, crafted by a friend of Rush Limbaugh, portrayed leaders in the Clinton administration as weak-willed bureaucrats. The drama showed them failing to take Osama bin Laden seriously. In contrast, the movie depicted Bush’s advisers as vigorous pursuers of al-Qaeda. Bill Clinton reacted quickly when Fox News interviewer Chris Wallace applied themes from the ABC movie in an interview. Clinton mentioned the film explicitly as replied to Wallace’s opening question. Democrats were pleased to see the former president gave a vigorous response to the provocation. Bill Clinton defended his administration’s handling of al-Qaeda and identified the Bush administration’s failure to go after the terrorist organization. Clinton said he regretted that his efforts did not lead to the capture or killing of Osama bin Laden, but, at least, he tried. Bush did not try hard before 9/11, he argued.

The makers of ABC’s “The Path to 9/11” may discover that their film brought some unintended consequences. Rather than convince the public that the Bush administration can best protect them, the film appears to have awakened Democrats, convincing them that a disinterested stance on pre-9/11 history is no longer acceptable. Bill Clinton’s robust answer to Wallace’s question appears to have inspired a new confidence among party members. At last, many Democrats seem eager to take on Republicans in debates about preparedness at the White House prior to 9/11.

When future historians look back on the first half-decade of American politics following the 9/11 tragedy, they are likely to express curiosity about the Democrats’ timidity in challenging the Bush administration’s claims about toughness against terrorism. Scholars will notice that from 2001 to 2006 Democrats allowed Republicans to claim that Bush had established a superior record in keeping the public safe from terrorist threats. Few Democrats mounted a challenge to this interpretation. Not many pointed directly to the Bush administration’s languid responses to many warning signals in the months before 9/11.

That situation may now be changing. Thanks especially to the provocation of a TV movie, a former president’s aggressive reaction to it, and revelations in Bob Woodward’s book, Democrats appear more eager to debate the history of security lapses in the executive office.