Before 911, Bush's focus was on missle defense not terrorism says Rice

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1802&ncid=1802&e=1&u=/washpost/20040401/ts_washpost/a40697_2004mar31

"On Sept. 11, 2001, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice was scheduled to outline a Bush administration policy that would address "the threats and problems of today and the day after, not the world of yesterday" -- but the focus was largely on missile defense, not terrorism from Islamic radicals."

"The text also implicitly challenged the Clinton administration's policy, saying it did not do enough about the real threat -- long-range missiles."

"The address was designed to promote missile defense as the cornerstone of a new national security strategy, and contained no mention of al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden or Islamic extremist groups."

they were spending way too much money on counterterrorism - according to condi.

They wanted war against China, not in the Middle East. They wanted absolute supeiority in conventional military terms and totally ignored unconventional warfare, which in many ways is more important.

The WH says Richard Clarke was supposed to be giving a speech that week on Cyber-terrorism.... :eyes:

giving a talk about the need to re-structure the military (including downsizing the Army by another two divisions) and making the SDI missile defense a top priority. 30 minutes later I heard about the planes hitting the WTC and thought to myself "no f@cking missile defense system would have prevented that sh!t from happening!"

From the same article I linked to above:

"During the summer of 2001, as al Qaeda operatives were in flight training and finalizing plans for the attacks, the administration's public focus was on other matters."

"After his first meeting with NATO heads of state in Brussels in June 2001, Bush outlined the five top defense issues discussed with the closest U.S. allies. Missile defense was at the top of the list, followed by developing a NATO relationship with Russia, working in common purpose with Europe, increased defense spending in NATO countries, and enlarging the alliance to include former East European countries."

"Top officials continued that public focus right up to the eve of the al Qaeda attacks. On Aug. 2, 2001, Cheney emphasized the bold new U.S. plan for a 21st century approach to security. "We're fundamentally transforming the U.S. strategic relationship around the world as we look at missile defenses and modifications to our offensive strategic arms," he said at a news conference with Republican congressional leaders on Capitol Hill."

This new discovery will only strengthen Dick Clarke's points and makes Sean Hannity look like a fool for saying Bush did everything he could to prevent terrorism.

Does this comes as a surprise or is news to anybody?

This was a lot of smart people's beef with those clowns at the time. The focus then was on resuscitating Reagan's defense programs ( big expensive "busy work" weapons systems, base closings, etc.), which for the most part was clearly backward looking and stupid.

Of course it was all forgotten on 9/12 when bush squeaked " it a new world now, everything has changed!" Actually, the only thing that changed was a new "cover your ass, make them forget what stupid asses we are" program that has been in place ever since.

They were so enamored with the illusion of Reagan's great presidency that they wanted to turn the clock back to those good old days of the cold war. In a word, incompetence!