Rick and I had a conversation the other day about our intelligence organizations failing to make the transition from the Cold War world to the terrorist threat world. We both agreed that, even if we were short sighted pre-9/11, fine, it is time to clean house, put the past in the past, re-examine things and move in the right direction. But, as Maureen Dowd says in an excellant (and less cheeky than normal) Op/Ed piece today:
The White House seems more worried about the public’s finding out how much it knew and how little it did before 9/11 than it does about identifying and fixing security weaknesses.
I find this to be (1) true and (2) very disturbing. I think it is high time for this issue to get “blown up” and the White House called out on why the examination of our pre-9/11 intelligence failures hasn’t been more open. Of course, we all know why, it is the 2004 election. As Dowd also said:
It is a triumph of chutzpah for Mr. Bush to thwart the investigation into 9/11 at the same time he seeks re-election by promoting his handling of 9/11 and scaring us with the specter of more terrorism. He’s even using 9/11 memorials as the backdrop for his convention in New York.