Their ‘battle stations’ were no defense BY James P. Pinkerton

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Their ‘battle stations’ were no defense James P. Pinkerton

April 13, 2004
http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-vppin133754399apr13,0,5083022.column?coll=ny-viewpoints-headlines


When terrorists plan to strike America, should they call in advance and make reservations? If not - if they aren't specific about time and place - should President George W. Bush and the rest of the federal government be held blameless for failing to stop them? That's been the view of the White House for the past two-and-a-half years, although public pressure may be changing that complacency.

As we all know by now, on Aug. 6, 2001, Bush received a briefing from the CIA, warning about "patterns of suspicious activity ... consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks." That's not a "historical" document, as National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice testified before the 9/11 Commission last week - that's an alarm bell that should have been heard.

But Bush wasn't listening, at least not closely. He said yesterday: "There was nothing in this report to me that said, 'Oh, by the way, we've got intelligence that says something is about to happen in America.'" It was not a warning, he continued, about "a hijacking of an airplane to fly into a building," but rather about possibly "hijacking of airplanes in order to free somebody that was being held as a prisoner in the United States."

So what could Bush have done, even without precise "intel"? He could have "shaken the trees," to use the Beltway phraseology. He could have ordered an immediate review of all ongoing counterterrorist activity, demanding daily follow-ups. Last week Rice said that Bush, in effect, had done just that: "The president of the United States had us at battle stations during this period of time."