The Nation

To bash, or not to bash? Bush, that is. And that is not the question. For it has already been answered. And the answer is, no. But not exactly.

The Kerryniks have decreed that this shall not be a week of overt W. slapping. In press conferences and interviews, Democratic honchos have said that criticizing Bush is not the aim of the convention. They want to use those valuable three hours of primetime coverage to boost John Kerry's positive. During the campaign Kerry freely slapped Bush about. He called Bush's foreign policy the most arrogant, inept and reckless in decades. Yet in campaign speeches on the road to the convention he has barely mentioned that guy he wants to trounce in November. And a chief Kerry strategist told me that "the Bush part of the story is already known. We don't have to talk much about it at this stage. We need to talk about John."

Before the official proceedings began on Monday, I wondered if it was wise for the Democrats to throttle back on the Bushwhacking. After all, I wrote a book entitled The Lies of George W. Bush, and anti-Bushism has been the main fuel of the Democrats' efforts this year. Could it be that the Kerry campaign was spooked by Republicans and conservative pundits, who have tried to characterize vigorous criticism of Bush as irrational "Bush-hatred" and who have attempted to portray Kerry as a doom-and-gloom pessimist?

When Democratic Party chairman Terry McAuliffe opened the convention on Monday evening, it did seem that the Dems were going to go easy on Bush. McAuliffe went vegetarian and stayed clear of red meat. He recited the usual Democratic litany about the Bush years: three million more Americans in poverty, four million more without health insurance, the largest budget deficit ever, the worst jobs-creation record in decades. But his conclusion was gentle: "We can do better." This was not the usual pitbull barking cable TV viewers have come to expect from the chairman.

Former Vice President Al Gore poked at Bush, but without the harshness and anger he has displayed in recent speeches. After reminding the delegates they had to make certain that every vote would be counted in the next election (not that such a reminder was necessary) and running through a series of self-deprecating jokes (he called America "a land of opportunity, where every little boy and girl has a chance to grow up and win the popular vote"), he did note "the way the [Iraq] war has been managed by the administration has gotten us into very serious trouble." And he criticized Bush for "confusing al Qaeda with Iraq." But in his menschy speech, there was no name-calling, no rough stuff. He left the stage without reprising the line he used at the 1992 convention (and which was swiped by Dick Cheney at the 2000 Republican convention): "It is time for them to go."

But then came Jimmy Carter and the Clintons, and it became evident that the Democratic strategy is not to eschew Bush-bashing. Instead, the Democrats are engaging in Bush-bashing without the Bush. That is, they are going after the deeds and the decisions, not the man.

Carter showed how this could be done. He never referred to Bush directly. But he remarked that Kerry "showed up when assigned to [military] duty." Nod, nod, wink, wink. Carter talked about the need for a president who "would not mislead us" and maintained that electing Kerry would "restore the judgment and maturity to our government that is sorely lacking today." He pushed this theme hard: "Truth is the foundation of our global leadership, but our credibility has been shattered and we are left increasingly isolated and vulnerable in a hostile world. Without truth--without trust--America cannot flourish." The crowd cheered when the former president declared, "A cowardly attack on innocent civilians brought us an unprecedented level of cooperation and understanding around the world. But in just 34 months, we have watched with deep concern as all this goodwill has been squandered by a virtually unbroken series of mistakes and miscalculations." Another crowd-pleaser was Carter's observation that "in the world at large we cannot lead if our leaders mislead." He never directly called Bush a liar. But he politely presented a rather sharp indictment of the unnamed president.

Then Hillary Clinton threw several brickbats at you-know-who. Praising John Kerry, she said, "He will lead the world, not alienate it. He will lower the deficit, not raise it. I know that he will create good jobs, not lose them. And he will solve a health care crisis, not ignore it." When she referred to the recently released report of the 9/11 commission, she noted that the 9/11 commission would not have existed had it not been for the persistence of the 9/11 families--which was a dig at Bush, who initially opposed the creation of the commission.

But leave it to Bill Clinton, the political master. In a home-run of a speech, he showed how the Democrats could engage in devastating Bush-bashing while smiling and not becoming disagreeable, shrill or discourteous. He remarked that Kerry and Bush were "two strong men who both love their country." But with wit and passion, he sliced Bush to bits. "We Democrats will bring the American people a positive campaign," Clinton said at the start of his speech, "arguing not who's good and who's bad, but what is the best way to build the safe, prosperous world our children deserve." He sharply contrasted his party with Bush's party:

"We think the role of government is to give people the tools and conditions to make the most of their lives. Republicans believe in an America run by the right people, their people, in a world in which we act unilaterally when we can, and cooperate when we have to."

"They think the role of government is to concentrate wealth and power in the hands of those who embrace their political, economic, and social views, leaving ordinary citizens to fend for themselves on matters like health care and retirement security. Since most Americans are not that far to the right, they have to portray us Democrats as unacceptable, lacking in strength and values. In other words, they need a divided America. But Americans long to be united. After 9/11, we all wanted to be one nation, strong in the fight against terror. The president had a great opportunity to bring us together under his slogan of compassionate conservatism and to unite the world in common cause against terror."

"Instead, he and his congressional allies made a very different choice: to use the moment of unity to push America too far to the right and to walk away from our allies, not only in attacking Iraq before the weapons inspectors finished their jobs, but in withdrawing American support for the Climate Change Treaty, the International Court for war criminals, the ABM treaty, and even the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty."

Then Clinton let loose:

"For the first time ever when America was on a war footing, there were two huge tax cuts, nearly half of which went to the top one percent. I'm in that group now for the first time in my life....They protected my tax cuts while withholding promised funding for the Leave No Child Behind Act, leaving over 2 million children behind; cutting 140,000 unemployed workers out of job training, 100,000 working families out of child care assistance, 300,000 poor children out of after school programs; raising out of pocket healthcare costs to veterans, weakening or reversing important environmental advances for clean air and the preservation of our forests."

"Everyone had to sacrifice except the wealthiest Americans, who wanted to do their part but were asked only to expend the energy necessary to open the envelopes containing our tax cuts. If you agree with these choices, you should vote to return them to the White House and Congress. If not, take a look at John Kerry, John Edwards and the Democrats."

Like a jazz musician, Clinton pushed the riff further. If you agree with the White House decisions to cut police funding and not to push for extending the ban on assault weapons--"they're taking police off the streets and putting assault weapons back on the streets"--then vote for the Republicans. If you agree with the White House's opposition to a bill that would have diverted $1 billion in tax cuts for the rich to a program to boost security inspections of cargo at ports and airports, then vote for the Republicans. "If you think it's good policy to pay for my tax cut with the Social Security checks of working men and women, and borrowed money from China," Clinton said, "vote for them."

Clinton, who was assailed by the right for being a draft-dodger, did not call Bush the same. But he made the point: "During the Vietnam War, many young men--including the current president, the vice president and me--could have gone to Vietnam but didn't. John Kerry came from a privileged background and could have avoided it too. Instead he said, send me."

As he hailed Kerry, Clinton still zinged a certain somebody. "In a time of change," he observed, "[Kerry] has two other important qualities: his insatiable curiosity to understand the forces shaping our lives, and a willingness to hear the views even of those who disagree with him." Now what might Clinton be suggesting about that other fellow? Clinton never explicitly questioned Bush's abilities. But he did say, "Their opponents will tell you to be afraid of John Kerry and John Edwards, because they won't stand up to the terrorists--don't you believe it. Strength and wisdom are not conflicting values--they go hand in hand." That line drew shouts and applause.

After his speech, conservative and liberal commentators (at the parties I attended) concurred that it had been a bravura performance. Clinton was generous in his praise of Kerry and Edwards. But talking up a nominee is not hard for any experienced pol. More importantly, Clinton pummeled Bush in a most sophisticated and effective manner. One need not be a Clinton fan to acknowledge that he showed his party how best to engage in Bush-bashing. It may sound odd coming from me, but it is not necessary to call Bush a "liar" to make the point. Clinton, who was pounded by the right and who had his own problems with truth-telling, demonstrated to his comrades how it is far better for them to wield a stiletto than a sledgehammer when trying to cut up a political foe.

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DON'T FORGET ABOUT DAVID CORN'S BOOK, The Lies of George W. Bush: Mastering the Politics of Deception (Crown Publishers). A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! An UPDATED and EXPANDED EDITION is NOW AVAILABLE in PAPERBACK. The Washington Post says, "This is a fierce polemic, but it is based on an immense amount of research....[I]t does present a serious case for the president's partisans to answer....Readers can hardly avoid drawing...troubling conclusions from Corn's painstaking indictment." The Los Angeles Times says, "David Corn's The Lies of George W. Bush is as hard-hitting an attack as has been leveled against the current president. He compares what Bush said with the known facts of a given situation and ends up making a persuasive case." The Library Journal says, "Corn chronicles to devastating effect the lies, falsehoods, and misrepresentations....Corn has painstakingly unearthed a bill of particulars against the president that is as damaging as it is thorough." And GEORGE W. BUSH SAYS, "I'd like to tell you I've read [ The Lies of George W. Bush], but that'd be a lie."

For more information and a sample, go to the official website: www.bushlies.com. And check out Corn's blog on the site.

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BOSTON -- When Tammy Baldwin takes the stage at the Democratic National Convention Monday night, with a prime-time speaking slot on a star-studded bill that includes two former presidents, a former vice president and a former first lady, she will pause to recall just how far she has come from an empty apartment on a very different convention night.

Back in 1984, Baldwin was fresh out of college and back in her hometown of Madison, Wisconsin. She had just sublet a small, unfurnished apartment. There was a mat on the floor, a pan her aunt had given her and a tiny, black-and-white television set. Baldwin remembers sitting alone in the apartment, watching the Democratic National Convention that was held that summer in San Francisco.

"I was 22 years old, very interested in politics, but I didn't really know what my options were," Baldwin explained. "That 1984 convention was the one where the Democrats nominated Geraldine Ferraro, the first woman, to run for vice president. I was so excited. So there I was, in my little apartment, watching Geraldine Ferraro delivering her acceptance speech and thinking, 'Wow, I can do anything in politics. The barriers are being broken. The sky's the limit."

Baldwin would go on to break a few of those barriers herself. After serving in local government, she won a seat in the legislature and, in 1998, she was the first out-of-the-closet lesbian elected to a seat in Congress.

As one of the youngest women in the House, a leading light on the Judiciary Committee, a key player in the Congressional Progressive Caucus and, still, the only open lesbian, Baldwin is something of a political celebrity nationally -- and as much of an inspiration to a growing number of young progressive women as Ferraro was for her two decades ago. "I think Tammy Baldwin is one of the most interesting people in Congress, and she's certainly one of the most interesting speakers at this year's convention," says Laura Flanders, the Air America radio host who recently authored a book on women in and around the Bush administration. "I'm more excited to hear her speak than just about anyone else on the list."

But when Baldwin addresses the convention and the country Monday night, on a bill that will feature Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, Al Gore and Hillary Clinton, among other Democratic luminaries, she won't be addressing women's empowerment, or the same-sex marriage debate in which she led a spirited floor fight against conservative House Republicans just last week.

Rather, she will focus on what has long been her signature issue: health care reform.

As one of three members of the House chosen to address key issues of the campaign, Baldwin says, "It's my job to explain the challenges that we face in our health care system -- lack of coverage for tens of millions of Americans, inadequate coverage for tens of millions more -- and to explain why John Kerry would do a better job of addressing these issues than George Bush. In some senses, that won't be hard. There are night-and-day differences between their plans: John Kerry's got a proposal that would move quickly to cover 29 million more Americans, especially children. The president's plan only covers 1.6 million more people."

Baldwin, one of the most prominent backers in Congress of a single-payer health care system that would cover all Americans, admits that the proposal put forward by Kerry, the man Democrats will nominate this week for president, does not achieve the full coverage that a single-payer system would deliver. But she says that, after meeting with Kerry and reviewing his proposal, she is enthusiastic about making the case for the Massachusetts senator.

"My perspective is different on how we get there, but I'm very satisfied that John Kerry is committed to working toward getting quality health care for all Americans," says the congresswoman, who will save her single-payer rap for House debates. "The speech to the convention is not about walking on stage and telling the nation what Tammy Baldwin wants to do. This is a nominating convention and my job is to talk about why I think it is essential to nominate John Kerry."

That does not mean that Baldwin's address will be a dry recitation of Kerry's positions. She has written a speech that will use the stories of constituents from her Midwestern district to illustrate health care concerns and issues. And, in this day of scripted conventions, Baldwin says she was pleasantly pleased by the free hand she was given in preparing her remarks.

"I wrote a speech and submitted it to the Kerry people. They said they loved it – and it's a little too long," recalled Baldwin. "There was never any pressure on content, they just said I had to keep it to under 10 minutes."

Two other Democratic members of the House, Ohio's Stephanie Tubbs-Jones and New Jersey's Robert Menendez, will address the economy and national security issues, respectively, as part of the program that includes Baldwin. Tubbs-Jones is an African-American, Menendez is a Latino, and, of course, Baldwin is one of the handful of lesbian and gay members of the House. Unlike Republican conventions, however, Baldwin says she and the other speakers are on stage to deliver substance, not symbolism.

"Democrats aren't going to typecast anyone. They're embracing us as individuals who have made our mark on fundamental issues facing the country -- not just as symbols," says Baldwin. "That's what's really exciting about this party and this convention."

Still, Baldwin says she hopes there will be young women, some of them just out of college and sitting on the floor of their first apartments, who will be inspired both by what she has to say and by her presence in prime time.

"A few years ago, I met Geraldine Ferraro," Baldwin recalls. "I told her I probably wouldn't be in Congress if I hadn't seen her speech. I know that times have changed and there are a lot more women in prominent positions. But I would be so happy if I could do for someone else what she did for me in 1984."

As convention time approached, I asked one of America's most prominent historians, Eric Foner, for some political history about Boston and Massachusetts. Foner, a valued member of The Nation's editorial board and an award-winning author, is a Professor of History at Columbia University, and former President of both the Organization of American Historians and the American Historical Association. His textbook, Give me Liberty: An American History will be published later this year.

Host for the very first time to a national convention, Boston is a perfect place to reflect on this country's alternative tradition of visionary thinking. It is a city, according to Foner, which illuminates "how the rights and freedoms of all Americans have, again and again in our history, been strengthened and expanded by the struggles of dissenters, and those excluded from the full benefits of the society, to create liberty as they understood it."

Take Roger Williams--the founder of the idea of religious freedom in America, driven out of Puritan Massachusetts for daring to challenge the entrenched orthodoxy. Foner says, "Williams insisted that religious liberty rests on the separation of church and state. He rejected the idea that any one leader or one people had a monopoly on religious truth or enjoyed the special favor of God, and insisted that merging church and state corrupted both politics (by leading rulers to think they were infallible) and religion (by making it the subject of political rivalries)."

Boston was also the cradle of the abolitionist movement, several of whose leaders helped found The Nation in 1865. Their example, Foner says, shows "how a small, couragous band of men and women challenged the most deeply entrenched economic interest in America, insisting that human rights took precedence over the rights of property and that economic activity must be held to a higher standard than more profit and efficiency."

Massachusetts was also one center of the early labor movement, including the legendary female factory workers at Lowell, just outside of Boston, who, Foner observes, "insisted that a modicum of economic autonomy and economic security is essential to freedom--an idea that has found expression at numerous moments in American history including Franklin Roosevelt's Freedom from Want (one of the Four Freedoms)--an idea that has dropped out of our political discourse--and down to those who today insist that economic globalization must be accompanied by labor and environmental safeguards.

And Massachusetts has always been a major center of the women's movement, in both the 19th and 20th centuries, which not only demanded for women the same rights in the public arena as men--the vote, education, economic opportunity, etc--but expanded the idea of freedom and of individual rights into the most intimate realms of life, insisting that the right to control one's own person is the foundation of personal independence (a right that Republicans are today working hard to rescind)."

During this convention week, many actions and gatherings will be devoted to calling for an end to the occupation in Iraq. Boston is the ideal city for such debates because, as Foner reminds, "it has a long tradition of patriotic opposition to unjust wars and to the violations of civil liberties that often accompany wars. Massachusetts was a center of opposition to the Mexican War (Thoreau went to jail rather than pay taxes to support a government that invaded a neighboring country). Every war in US history, with the exception of World War II, has been the subject of strong opposition and internal debate. And the right to criticize the government in wartime, and to retain constitutional protection of civil liberties, is another major strand of patriotic dissent. I'd cite the opposition to the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 and the Sedition Act of 1918, both of which made it illegal to criticize the federal government, and the recent Supreme Court decisions rebuking the Bush Administration for seeking to abrogate the basic civil liberties of Americans accused of crimes as the latest in a long tradition of instence that the constitution is not suspended even in times of crisis."

And as this Administration attempts to rollback the social and democratic achievements of the 20th century, Boston--home to Senator Edward Kennedy, Congressman Jim McGovern and the late Congressman Joe Moakley, among many others--powerfully reminds us of the victories of 20th-century social liberalism, of using the government to promote greater equality and to aid the weak and disadvantaged. This is a winning legacy which Kerry would do well to evoke and emulate.

After all, as Foner points out, "It is important to note that this tradition, which originated in the Progressive era, and reached its flowering under FDR and LBJ, was originally bipartisan, but that Republican Progressivism has fallen by the wayside, to be replaced by a dog-eat-dog view of society and an alliance with the privileged rather than ordinary Americans."

Watch this space for daily posts from the DNC in Boston.

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The final report of the 9/11 commission confirms many of the panel's preliminary findings that have--or should have--embarrassed the Bush administration. The commission does note, "Our aim has not been to assign individual blame. Our aim has been to provide the fullest possible account of the events surrounding 9/11 and to identify lessons learned." And it is true that the report does point to screw-ups and negligent policymaking committed during both the Bush II and Clinton administrations. But George W. Bush is the incumbent president who has to face the voters in November. Although Republicans in recent days have been highlighting the mistakes of the Clinton years, it is not inappropriate for voters to focus on what report tells us about Bush and his administration. As a public service, here is a look at several of those critical portions.

* Bush's initial reaction. Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 has made famous--or infamous--the scene when Bush, after having been told that a second airliner had hit the World Trace Center, sits for seven minutes in a Florida classroom, as the kids read a book. The 9/11 report says,

The President was seated in a classroom when, at 9:05, Andrew Card whispered to him: "A second plane hit the second tower. America is under attack." The President told us his instinct was to project calm, not to have the country see an excited reaction at a moment of crisis. The press was standing behind the children; he saw their phones and pagers start to ring. The President felt he should project strength and calm until he could better understand what was happening.

In the Moore film, Bush hardly looks as if he is projecting "calm." To me--and, of course, this is a highly subjective view--he has a what-the-hell-should-I-do expression on his face. But Bush backers and detractors are likely to see what they want to in that seven-minute performance. Bush's reaction, though, cannot be judged on the basis of what is now known about the 9/11 attacks. Consider this: when Bush was told about the second plane, it was obvious that the United States was under attack. Today we know that attack involved four planes. But at the moment that Card whispered into his ear, Bush (and everyone else) had no idea about the full extent of the assault. There could have been twenty airliners hijacked. There could have been WMD attacks coming. Perhaps minutes mattered. So how was it a projection of strength and calm for Bush to remain in a classroom--doing nothing--when who-knew-what was happening? He could have easily excused himself, especially as pagers and cell phones were sounding. His explanation rings hollow.

* Terrorism as a priority for the Bush administration. Former counterterrorism Richard Clarke triggered a fierce, partisan debate earlier this year when he wrote in a book that the Bush administration pre-9/11 did not take the threat of al Qaeda seriously enough. The Bush administration challenged Clarke's account and attacked him vigorously. The 9/11 commission's report does suggest the terrorism was not an A-list topic for the Bush White House:

Within the first few days after Bush's inauguration, Clarke approached [national security adviser Condoleezza] Rice in an effort to get her--and the new President--to give terrorism very high priority and to act on the agenda that he had pushed during the last few months of the previous administration. After Rice requested that all senior staff identify desirable major policy reviews or initiatives, Clarke submitted an elaborate memorandum on January 25, 2001. He attached to it his [anti-al Qaeda] 1998 Delenda Plan and the December 2000 strategy paper. "We urgently need ...a Principals level review on the al Qida network," Clarke wrote.

He wanted the Principals Committee to decide whether al Qaeda was "a first order threat" or a more modest worry being overblown by "chicken little" alarmists. Alluding to the transition briefing that he had prepared for Rice, Clarke wrote that al Qaeda "is not some narrow, little terrorist issue that needs to be included in broader regional policy." Two key decisions that had been deferred, he noted, concerned covert aid to keep the Northern Alliance alive when fighting began again in Afghanistan in the spring, and covert aid to the Uzbeks. Clarke also suggested that decisions should be made soon on messages to the Taliban and Pakistan over the al Qaeda sanctuary in Afghanistan, on possible new money for CIA operations, and on "when and how... to respond to the attack on the USS Cole."

The national security advisor did not respond directly to Clarke's memorandum. No Principals Committee meeting on al Qaeda was held until September 4, 2001 (although the Principals Committee met frequently on other subjects, such as the Middle East peace process, Russia, and the PersianGulf ).

The lack of response to Clarke does appear to indicate that for Rice, at least, the al Qaeda threat was not a high priority. The report details the many steps the Bush administration did take in its first eight months to establish a counterterrorism policy aimed at al Qaeda. By no means were Rice and others doing nothing. But counterterrorism was not on the fast track. An example from the report:

In May, President Bush announced that Vice President Cheney would himself lead an effort looking at preparations for managing a possible attack by weapons of mass destruction and at more general problems of national preparedness. The next few months were mainly spent organizing the effort andbringing an admiral from the Sixth Fleet back to Washington to manage it. The Vice President's task force was just getting under way when the 9/11 attack occurred.

And another example:

The Bush administration did not develop new diplomatic initiatives on al Qaeda with the Saudi government before 9/11. Vice President Cheney called Crown Prince Abdullah on July 5, 2001, to seek Saudi help in preventing threatened attacks on American facilities in the Kingdom. Secretary of State Powell met with the crown prince twice before 9/11. They discussed topics like Iraq, not al Qaeda.U.S.-Saudi relations in the summer of 2001 were marked by sometimes heated disagreements about ongoing Israeli-Palestinian violence, not about Bin Ladin.

Even when the Bush administration eventually finalized a "three-phase, multiyear plan to pressure and perhaps ultimately topple the Taliban leadership"--on September 10, 2001--the plan was not ready for implementation. The report notes, "Funding still needed to be located. The military component remained unclear. Pakistan remained uncooperative. The domestic policy institutions were largely uninvolved."

Is it fair to hold the Bush crowd to a post-9/11 standard? In a way, yes. Presidents are responsible for what happens on their watch. When the economy improves or declines, they get the credit or the blame. In this case, though, the Bush administration can be faulted for establishing the wrong priorities. For instance, Bush and his lot said that missile defense was a top need because a ballistic missile attack from a rogue state was a top threat. (Intelligence community analysts disagreed with this threat assessment.) Well, the Bushies got that wrong, and a political punishment would not be unreasonable.

* The Bush administration's reaction to the threat reports of 2001. The 9/11 commission's final report elaborately details the flood of intelligence reports received in the spring and summer of 2001 indicating something big was coming from al Qaeda. The report backs up the CYA assertion made by administration officials that most of the reports appeared to suggest the target for such an attack would be outside the United States. Nevertheless, one question has been how the Bush administration responded to the high state of alert. One of his cabinet members comes out particularly poorly in the commission's report.

Attorney General Ashcroft was briefed by the CIA in May and by [acting FBI chief Thomas] Pickard in early July about the danger [being indicated in the intelligence reporting]. Pickard said he met with Ashcroft once a week in late June, through July, and twice in August. There is a dispute regarding Ashcroft's interest in Pickard's briefings about the terrorist threat situation. Pickard told us that after two such briefings Ashcroft told him that he did not want to hear about the threats anymore. Ashcroft denies Pickard's charge. Pickard says he continued to present terrorism information during further briefings that summer, but nothing further on the "chatter" the U.S. government was receiving.

The Attorney General told us he asked Pickard whether there was intelligence about attacks in the United States and that Pickard said no. Pickard said he replied that he could not assure Ashcroft that there would be no attacks in the United States, although the reports of threats were related to overseas targets. Ashcroft said he therefore assumed the FBI was doing what it needed to do. He acknowledged that in retrospect, this was a dangerous assumption. He did not ask the FBI what it was doing in response to the threats and did not task it to take any specific action. He also did not direct the INS, then still part of the Department of Justice, to take any specific action.

In sum, the domestic agencies never mobilized in response to the threat. They did not have direction, and did not have a plan to institute. The borders were not hardened. Transportation systems were not fortified. Electronic surveillance was not targeted against a domestic threat. State and local law enforcement were not marshaled to augment the FBI's efforts. The public was not warned. The terrorists exploited deep institutional failings within our government. The question is whether extra vigilance might have turned up an opportunity to disrupt the plot. As seen in Chapter 7, al Qaeda's operatives made mistakes. At least two such mistakes created opportunities during 2001, especially in late August.

The commission, then, is suggesting that Ashcroft's "dangerous assumption" contributed to a situation in which the FBI was not able to take advantage of al Qaeda's mistakes and thwart the 9/11 plot. In many other nations, if the chief law enforcement officer made a wrong assumption--even in good faith--that placed the nation at risk, he or she would resign or be canned. Yet Ashcroft has continued to enjoy the benefits of government employment.

How Bush and his senior White House advisers responded to the hair-raising "chatter" has been a critical issue. The report shows that the intelligence reporting in mid-2001 was indeed damn frightening. Here's a sampling:

On June 25, Clarke warned Rice and Hadley that six separate intelligence reports showed al Qaeda personnel warning of a pending attack. An Arabic television station reported Bin Ladin's pleasure with al Qaeda leaders who were saying that the next weeks "will witness important surprises" and that U.S. and Israeli interests will be targeted. Al Qaeda also released a new recruitment and fund-raising tape. Clarke wrote that this was all too sophisticated to be merely a psychological operation to keep the United States on edge, and the CIA agreed. The intelligence reporting consistently described the upcoming attacks as occurring on a calamitous level, indicating that they would cause the world to be in turmoil and that they would consist of possible multiple--but not necessarily simultaneous--attacks.

On June 28, Clarke wrote Rice that the pattern of al Qaeda activity indicating attack planning over the past six weeks "had reached a crescendo." "A series of new reports continue to convince me and analysts at State, CIA, DIA [Defense Intelligence Agency], and NSA that a major terrorist attack or series of attacks is likely in July," he noted. One al Qaeda intelligence report warned that something "very, very, very, very" big was about to happen, and most of Bin Ladin's network was reportedly anticipating the attack. In late June, the CIA ordered all its station chiefs to share information on al Qaeda with their host governments and to push for immediate disruptions of cells. The headline of a June 30 briefing to top officials was stark: "Bin Ladin Planning High-Profile Attacks." The report stated that Bin Ladin operatives expected near-term attacks to have dramatic consequences of catastrophic proportions. That same day, Saudi Arabia declared its highest level of terror alert. Despite evidence of delays possibly caused by heightened U.S. security, the planning for attacks was continuing.

On July 2, the FBI Counterterrorism Division sent a message to federal agencies and state and local law enforcement agencies summarizing information regarding threats from Bin Ladin. It warned that there was an increased volume of threat reporting, indicating a potential for attacks against U.S. targets abroad from groups "aligned with or sympathetic to Usama Bin Ladin." Despite the general warnings, the message further stated, "The FBI has no information indicating a credible threat of terrorist attack in the United States." However, it went on to emphasize that the possibility of attack in the United States could not be discounted. It also noted that the July 4 holiday might heighten the threats. The report asked recipients to "exercise extreme vigilance" and "report suspicious activities" to the FBI. It did not suggest specific actions that they should take to prevent attacks....

In mid-July, reporting started to indicate that Bin Ladin's plans had been delayed, maybe for as long as two months, but not abandoned. On July 23, the lead item for CSG [Counterterrorism Security Group] discussion was still the al Qaeda threat, and it included mention of suspected terrorist travel to the United States.

But at least one prominent Bush aide was not worried about al Qaeda. The commission writes,

[CIA director George] Tenet told us that in his world "the system was blinking red." By late July, Tenet said, it could not "get any worse." Not everyone was convinced. Some asked whether all these threats might just be deception. On June 30, the SEIB [Senior Executive Intelligence Brief] contained an article titled "Bin Ladin Threats Are Real." Yet Hadley told Tenet in July that Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz questioned the reporting. Perhaps Bin Ladin was trying to study U.S. reactions. Tenet replied that he had already addressed the Defense Department's questions on this point; the reporting was convincing. To give a sense of his anxiety at the time, one senior official in the Counterterrorist Center told us that he and a colleague were considering resigning in order to go public with their concerns.

Which brings us to the infamous August 6, 2001, Presidential Daily Brief. Bush received this report after months of harrowing intelligence reporting. True, the "chatter" had diminished in recent weeks, but, as the commission notes, some of that "chatter" had caused some officials to be concerned about the possibility of a domestic attack. It was within this context that Bush received a PDB titled, "Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US." The 9/11 commission, which interviewed Bush (after the White House first tried to limit the session and then insisted on a single, joint interview with Bush and Cheney) notes,

The President told us the August 6 report was historical in nature. President Bush said the article told him that al Qaeda was dangerous, which he said he had known since he had become President. The President said Bin Ladin had long been talking about his desire to attack America. He recalled some operational data on the FBI, and remembered thinking it was heartening that 70 investigations were under way. As best he could recollect, Rice had mentioned that the Yemenis' surveillance of a federal building in New York had been looked into in May and June, but there was no actionable intelligence. He did not recall discussing the August 6 report with the Attorney General or whether Rice had done so. He said that if his advisers had told him there was a cell in the United States, they would have moved to take care of it. That never happened.

Bush's explanation was disingenuous. The report was not merely "historical in nature." It provided information about the current threat. It said,

FBI information since that time [1998] indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.

The FBI is conducting approximately 70 full field investigations throughout the US that it considers Bin Ladin-related. CIA and the FBI are investigating a call to our Embassy in the UAE in May saying that a group of Bin Ladin supporters was in the US planning attacks with explosives.

It turns out the PDB overstated the number of ongoing investigations. But ponder this episode. Bush is told that al Qaeda is involved in "suspicious activity in this country," to the extent that there are 70 "full field investigations," and he did not make any further inquiries or ask the attorney general about any of this. Perhaps he was confident that the FBI and others were on the case. But a serious-minded president might have poked and prodded the agencies on the basis of this news. Ashcroft, for one, could have used some goosing. But Bush goosed no one.

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After you read this article, check out David Corn's NEW WEBLOG by going to www.davidcorn.com.

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* The alliance (or lack thereof) between al Qaeda and Iraq. The 9/11 commission created a firestorm not too long ago when it released an interim report that said the commission had found no evidence of a "collaborative relationship" between Saddam Hussein's brutal regime and al Qaeda. In response, Bush and Cheney declared there had been a "relationship." After all, Bush had argued before the war that Hussein was "a threat because he is dealing with al Qaeda." Without that connection and without the (still missing) WMDs, Bush's primary case for war--Hussein as an "immediate" threat--would fall apart. Thus, Bush-backers and neocon advocates of the war have relentlessly tried to keep alive the supposed connection between Hussein and al Qaeda, even as the Senate intelligence committee report on the prewar intelligence says the intelligence community was correct to conclude there was no confirmation of a working relationship between the two.

After the 9/11 commission released that interim report, there was talk that its final report might shy away from this matter. But the commission hang tough. These are the relevant portions:

Bin Ladin was also willing [in the early 1990s] to explore possibilities for cooperation with Iraq, even though Iraq's dictator, Saddam Hussein, had never had an Islamist agenda--save for his opportunistic pose as a defender of the faithful against "Crusaders" during the Gulf War of 1991. Moreover, Bin Ladin had in fact been sponsoring anti-Saddam Islamists in Iraqi Kurdistan, and sought to attract them into his Islamic army. To protect his own ties with Iraq, Sudanese leader Husan al] Turabi reportedly brokered an agreement that Bin Ladin would stop supporting activities against Saddam. Bin Ladin apparently honored this pledge, at least for a time, although he continued to aid a group of Islamist extremists operating in part of Iraq (Kurdistan) outside of Baghdad's control....

With the Sudanese regime acting as intermediary, Bin Ladin himself met with a senior Iraqi intelligence officer in Khartoum in late 1994 or early 1995. Bin Ladin is said to have asked for space to establish training camps, as well as assistance in procuring weapons, but there is no evidence that Iraq responded to this request. As described below, the ensuing years saw additional efforts to establish connections.....

Similar meetings between Iraqi officials and Bin Ladin or his aides may have occurred in 1999 during a period of some reported strains with the Taliban. According to the reporting, Iraqi officials offered Bin Ladin a safe haven in Iraq. Bin Ladin declined, apparently judging that his circumstances in Afghanistan remained more favorable than the Iraqi alternative. The reports describe friendly contacts and indicate some common themes in both sides' hatred of the United States. But to date we have seen no evidence that these or the earlier contacts ever developed into a collaborative operational relationship. Nor have we seen evidence indicating that Iraq cooperated with al Qaeda in developing or carrying out any attacks against the United States.

Isn't it time to say "case closed"? No doubt, the neocons will claim the 9/11 report, the CIA, and the Senate intelligence committee are all wrong on this subject. But at some point, doesn't good manners compel them to hoist the white flag? Speaking of which....

* Mohamed Atta in Prague. Cheney and others have not been able to let go of the allegation--long deemed unlikely by the CIA and the FBI--that Atta, the ringleader of the 9/11 hijackers, met with an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague several months before the September 11 attacks. When the 9/11 commission issued a preliminary finding declaring there was no evidence to substantiate the allegation, Cheney insisted the Prague meeting remained an open question. In its final report, the commission tries to bury this charge once and for all. Will Cheney accept the panel's verdict? Probably not, but maybe he will stop talking about a meeting that probably never happened. This is what the commission reports:

Mohamed Atta is known to have been in Prague on two occasions: in December 1994, when he stayed one night at a transit hotel, and in June 2000, when he was en route to the United States. On the latter occasion, he arrived by bus from Germany, on June 2, and departed for Newark the following day. The allegation that Atta met with an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague in April 2001 originates from the reporting of a single source of the Czech intelligence service. Shortly after 9/11, the source reported having seen Atta meet with Ahmad Khalil Ibrahim Samir al Ani, an Iraqi diplomat, at the Iraqi Embassy in Prague on April 9, 2001, at 11:00 A.M. This information was passed to CIA headquarters.

The U.S. legal attache ("Legat ") in Prague, the representative of the FBI, met with the Czech service's source. After the meeting, the assessment of the Legat and the Czech officers present was that they were 70 percent sure that the source was sincere and believed his own story of the meeting. Subsequently, the Czech intelligence service publicly stated that there was a 70 percent probability that the meeting between Atta and Ani had taken place. The Czech Interior Minister also made several statements to the press about his belief that the meeting had occurred, and the story was widely reported.

The FBI has gathered evidence indicating that Atta was in Virginia Beach on April 4 (as evidenced by a bank surveillance camera photo), and in Coral Springs, Florida on April 11, where he and Shehhi leased an apartment. On April 6, 9, 10, and 11, Atta's cellular telephone was used numerous times to call various lodging establishments in Florida from cell sites within Florida. We cannot confirm that he placed those calls. But there are no U.S. records indicating that Atta departed the country during this period. Czech officials have reviewed their flight and border records as well for any indication that Atta was in the Czech Republic in April 2001, including records of anyone crossing the border who even looked Arab. They have also reviewed pictures from the area near the Iraqi embassy and have not discovered photos of anyone who looked like Atta. No evidence has been found that Atta was in the CzechRepublic in April 2001.

According to the Czech government, Ani, the Iraqi officer alleged to have met with Atta, was about 70 miles away from Prague on April 8 –9 and did not return until the afternoon of the ninth, while the source was firm that the sighting occurred at 11:00 A.M. When questioned about the reported April 2001 meeting, Ani--now in custody--has denied ever meeting or having any contact with Atta. Ani says that shortly after 9/11, he became concerned that press stories about the alleged meeting might hurt his career. Hoping to clear his name, Ani asked his superiors to approach the Czech government about refuting the allegation. He also denies knowing of any other Iraqi official having contact with Atta.

These findings cannot absolutely rule out the possibility that Atta was in Prague on April 9, 2001. He could have used an alias to travel and a passport under that alias, but this would be an exception to his practice of using his true name while traveling (as he did in January and would in July when he took his next overseas trip). The FBI and CIA have uncovered no evidence that Atta held any fraudulent passports. KSM [Khalid Sheikh Mohammed] and [Ramzi] Binalshibh both deny that an Atta-Ani meeting occurred. There was no reason for such a meeting, especially considering the risk it would pose to the operation. By April 2001, all four pilots had completed most of their training, and the muscle hijackers were about to begin entering the United States. The available evidence does not support the original Czech report of an Atta-Ani meeting.

To recap, then: no working relationship between Hussein and al Qaeda, no Prague meeting, no strong reaction from Bush to the pre-9/11 warnings of a pending al Qaeda attack, no more than routine attention devoted to the al Qaeda threat by the Bush team in the months before September 11. GOPers can wag their fingers at Bill Clinton, who also did not do enough (obviously). But there is no denying this report is bad news for Bush and his crew. If Bush wants this election to be a referendum on how he has handled the threat posed by al Qaeda, this report--available now in local bookstores and online at the 9/11 commission's site--ought to be read by those 49 swing voters in Ohio who will be deciding the election for the rest of us.

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