Gary Hart: "The terrorists are coming, the terrorists are coming."

[nostamj]

April 2, 2004  |  Richard Clarke was not the only national security expert who warned National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and other Bush administration officials about terrorist threats before 9/11. Former Democratic Sen. Gary Hart of Colorado also directly told senior Bush officials loudly and clearly that, in his words, "The terrorists are coming, the terrorists are coming."

Hart was co-chair (with former Sen. Warren Rudman, R-N.H.) of the U.S. Commission on National Security, a bipartisan panel that conducted the most thorough investigation of U.S. security challenges since World War II. After completing the report, which warned that a devastating terrorist attack on America was imminent and called for the immediate creation of a Cabinet-level national security agency, and delivering it to President Bush on January 31, 2001, Hart and Rudman personally briefed Rice, Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell. But, according to Hart, the Bush administration never followed up on the commission's urgent recommendations, even after he repeated them in a private White House meeting with Rice just days before 9/11.

Hart, who is now advising the Kerry campaign on national security issues, spoke with Salon this week about the Bush administration's failures to heed his warnings and why he feels the country is still at grave risk. Even at this late date, says Hart, Bush has failed to sufficiently coordinate federal, state, local and private-sector security efforts, leaving open American ports as possible entry points for weapons of mass destruction and exposing such prime targets as petrochemical facilities located near major urban areas. And two and a half years after 9/11, Hart observes, no government official has been held responsible for the disastrous security failures of that day. The Bush White House, he charges, is locked in a strange and delicate dance with intelligence officials, maneuvering to place blame on the CIA but fearing if it does so too blatantly, the Bush team's own failings will be exposed.

David Talbot Interviews Hart in Salon

Will the nonexistent weapons of mass destruction come back to haunt Bush in November?

I think what will haunt this administration is its lack of accountability. Either George Bush was misled, which is his story, or he misled the American people. There are no other choices. If he's a strong president, as he and his supporters claim, then heads should roll. If the president of the United States is misled by those who advise him, heads should roll. And we have not seen this. If he misled the American people, then he must go.

[sweetheart]

1. The image of chicken little doing that

would make a great cartoon... an updated chicken little.... and now
there are hundreds of them cloned: "the terrorists are here" "the
terrorists are here"

[nostamj]

3. except, this 'chicken little' was RIGHT

the first time!

[zbdent]

7. Not Chicken Little, please - Paul Revere

and the minutemen in this case said "Oh, he's one of those looney Democrats. Put him on ignore."

[nostamj]

8. "on ignore" damn!

THAT sums up the bushies on everything related to the Clinton administration.

they put it on IGNORE

and at what cost?

[walkon]

2. I had not thought about this.

With the BFEE there are so many failures to track. They ignored the threat, of that there can be no doubt. Was it arrogance, ignorance or part of LIHOP? It seems to me that such a perfect failure is part of a plan.

[DemLikr]

4. but...but...Gary Hart had a woman SITTING ON HIS LAP...and...and...

...a boat named the MONKEY BUSINESS...and...and thus HE CANNOT BE TRUSTED AND MUST BE DESTROYED...and...and...

I'm just trying to anticipate the traditional Republican response. :eyes:

[nostamj]

5. that might have worked before BUT

9/11 CHANGED EVERYTHING

sorry bushies... the Jersey Girls ain't gonna buy that line this time...

[noonwitch]

6. Rudman is a republican, he agreed with Hart on the recommendations

Don't they even listen to their own?