The Gortons and Slades - Washington Secretary of State

42 | The Nature of the Enemy
Pogo, the coMic stRip possuM, famously observed, “We have met
the enemy and he is us.” The commission concluded that 9/11, like
Pearl Harbor, stemmed in large part from bureaucratic inertia, compounded
by politics. When Bill Clinton gave his successor a final briefing
on national security issues just before leaving office, he recalls saying,
“One of the great regrets of my presidency is that I didn’t get him (bin
Laden) for you, because I tried to.”
After the attack on the USS Cole, ambiguous reports about al-Qaida’s
culpability caused indecision among the Pentagon, the State Department,
the FBI and CIA. Should the U.S. give an ultimatum to the Taliban to
cough up bin Laden or else? And what about collateral damage that might
further inflame the Islamic world? Absent actionable intelligence—that
phrase punctuates everything—the lame-duck president was worried
about being accused of launching “wag the dog” air strikes in Afghanistan
to try and help elect his vice president. 1
The protracted battle for the White House complicated the transition
to a new administration and created a dangerous period of vulnerability,
Gorton and Gorelick wrote later. “As always, the crowd coming in was
dismissive of the concerns of the crowd going out.” With nominations to
some key posts delayed, Bush took too long to set priorities for his national-security
team. By then the attack on the Cole was yesterday’s news.
They decided to regroup and push ahead with a new plan. It was a rational
political decision, Gorton says, “but that guy in the cave in Afghanistan is
thinking, ‘What a bunch of paper tigers! We kill 17 sailors and almost
sink one of their ships and they don’t even shoot a rocket over here.’” 2
Gorton believes the decision to not follow up forcefully on the attack on
the Cole led directly to 9/11, a view shared by Bob Kerrey and John Lehman,
the former Navy secretary who served on the commission. “Al-Qaida
didn’t think we’d react to 9/11,” Gorton says. “They must have thought
we’d just find somebody and put him on trial in New York City after six
or seven years. Can’t you hear Bin Laden and his lieutenants saying,
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