Amid anguished debate here over whether the Clinton or Bush administration was more at fault for failing to preemptively crack down on Al Qaeda terrorists, a central vulnerability of the U.S. system remained largely unexamined: slips, lapses and lags inherent to the handover of power from one administration to the next.Original, yes, but no less pathetic for that, especially when offered on behalf of an administration that still tries to justify the invasion of Iraq by insisting it was merely slavishly following Clinton administration policy. I mean, first off, that's what transition teams are for: making transitions. Doesn't this just suggest that the Bush team was particularly incompetent at the task? (Significant sidebar, just in case you didn't know: Among the members of the Bush transition team was Philip Zelikow - who is now executive director of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, better known as the 9/11 Commission.)
Even as Al Qaeda militants continued preparing in late 2000 and through 2001 for the calamitous attacks on U.S. targets of Sept. 11, the transition from one administration to another was slowing U.S. intelligence and military efforts to press Al Qaeda and its Taliban hosts.
To see how utterly silly this argument is, just consider that it effectively says that the US would have been safer if Al Gore had been elected because that would have avoided a major transition (well, yes, actually he was elected, but you know what I mean). Somehow I don't think that's what those who raise "the transition problem" had in mind.
More significantly, even though the claim is laughable, the act of advancing it is an admission that the White House didn't take al-Qaeda seriously, since it apparently preferred having no policy on whatever threat bin Laden's organization presented to continuing a previous policy until a new one (if one was desired) could be formulated.
I'll say it again: Is this really the best they can do?
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