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Documents reveal Cold War mindset of Bush administration before Sept. 11
By DOUG SAUNDERS
UPDATED AT 9:24 AM EDT Friday, Apr. 2, 2004
In the months and days leading up to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, senior White House officials were obsessed not with Islamic terrorism, but with Russia and China, which they believed posed the most serious threats in the world.
Documents illustrating this Cold War mindset emerged as U.S. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice announced that she will testify next Thursday before a congressional commission into the administration's failure to anticipate or prevent the Sept. 11 attacks. Her 2� hours of televised testimony will likely focus on her dedication to the superpower rivalries of another era, and her belief that the threat of Islamic terrorism was a relic from the previous administration.
On the day of the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, Ms. Rice was scheduled to deliver a speech outlining the administration's national security priorities. Instead, she spent much of the day in a secure bunker.
Yesterday, parts of that speech were printed in The Washington Post, and they reveal that her major concern that morning was to dismiss the significance of terrorist threats and to suggest that the "Star Wars" shield against intercontinental missiles was a more important priority. "We need to worry about the suitcase bomb, the car bomb and the vial of sarin released in the subway," she was to say.
"[But] why put deadbolt locks on your doors and stock up on cans of mace and then decide to leave your windows open?"
Two days earlier, during an appearance on Meet the Press, Ms. Rice had said that President George W. Bush was prepared "to get serious about the business of dealing with this emergent threat. Ballistic missiles are ubiquitous now."
Indeed, almost all of the public writing and speaking delivered during 2000 and 2001 by Ms. Rice, who spent the 1980s as a prominent Sovietologist, was devoted to threats from Russia and China, and countries seen as their allies, such as North Korea and Iran.
Islamic terrorism, a subject that had never been part of her scholarly or government work, was generally dismissed or given the lowest priority.
In an article she wrote for the journal Foreign Affairs in 2000, Ms. Rice listed America's relations with Russia and China, dealing with Russian weakness and coping with rogue regimes such as Iran as her top concerns. Terrorism was mentioned only in the context of Iran.
She concluded in that article that Democratic president Bill Clinton's administration lacked "a disciplined and consistent foreign policy that separates the important from the trivial." Those "trivial" concerns presumably included al-Qaeda.
Such dismissive statements are likely to become important as key White House figures testify in the next few weeks at the congressional hearings.
It has become increasingly apparent that Mr. Bush and his top advisers, most of whom had served in key governmental posts during the Cold War years, had failed to think beyond the parameters of that conflict.
Mr. Clinton's administration, which devoted much more attention to terrorist organizations and launched military attacks against al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, was viewed by Mr. Bush's staff as misguided and inattentive to the real threat of superpower rivalries. In the months leading up to the attacks, Mr. Bush also appeared to have embraced that view.
In June of 2001, he met with the heads of North Atlantic Treaty Organization countries in Brussels, and discussed what he considered the alliance's top five defence issues. The missile-shield defence system topped the list, followed by the need for better relations with Russia, co-operation with Europe, increased defence spending by other members, and the incorporation of Eastern Europe. Terrorism was mentioned only in reference to Macedonia.
By DOUG SAUNDERS
UPDATED AT 9:24 AM EDT Friday, Apr. 2, 2004
In the months and days leading up to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, senior White House officials were obsessed not with Islamic terrorism, but with Russia and China, which they believed posed the most serious threats in the world.
Documents illustrating this Cold War mindset emerged as U.S. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice announced that she will testify next Thursday before a congressional commission into the administration's failure to anticipate or prevent the Sept. 11 attacks. Her 2� hours of televised testimony will likely focus on her dedication to the superpower rivalries of another era, and her belief that the threat of Islamic terrorism was a relic from the previous administration.
On the day of the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, Ms. Rice was scheduled to deliver a speech outlining the administration's national security priorities. Instead, she spent much of the day in a secure bunker.
Yesterday, parts of that speech were printed in The Washington Post, and they reveal that her major concern that morning was to dismiss the significance of terrorist threats and to suggest that the "Star Wars" shield against intercontinental missiles was a more important priority. "We need to worry about the suitcase bomb, the car bomb and the vial of sarin released in the subway," she was to say.
"[But] why put deadbolt locks on your doors and stock up on cans of mace and then decide to leave your windows open?"
Two days earlier, during an appearance on Meet the Press, Ms. Rice had said that President George W. Bush was prepared "to get serious about the business of dealing with this emergent threat. Ballistic missiles are ubiquitous now."
Indeed, almost all of the public writing and speaking delivered during 2000 and 2001 by Ms. Rice, who spent the 1980s as a prominent Sovietologist, was devoted to threats from Russia and China, and countries seen as their allies, such as North Korea and Iran.
Islamic terrorism, a subject that had never been part of her scholarly or government work, was generally dismissed or given the lowest priority.
In an article she wrote for the journal Foreign Affairs in 2000, Ms. Rice listed America's relations with Russia and China, dealing with Russian weakness and coping with rogue regimes such as Iran as her top concerns. Terrorism was mentioned only in the context of Iran.
She concluded in that article that Democratic president Bill Clinton's administration lacked "a disciplined and consistent foreign policy that separates the important from the trivial." Those "trivial" concerns presumably included al-Qaeda.
Such dismissive statements are likely to become important as key White House figures testify in the next few weeks at the congressional hearings.
It has become increasingly apparent that Mr. Bush and his top advisers, most of whom had served in key governmental posts during the Cold War years, had failed to think beyond the parameters of that conflict.
Mr. Clinton's administration, which devoted much more attention to terrorist organizations and launched military attacks against al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, was viewed by Mr. Bush's staff as misguided and inattentive to the real threat of superpower rivalries. In the months leading up to the attacks, Mr. Bush also appeared to have embraced that view.
In June of 2001, he met with the heads of North Atlantic Treaty Organization countries in Brussels, and discussed what he considered the alliance's top five defence issues. The missile-shield defence system topped the list, followed by the need for better relations with Russia, co-operation with Europe, increased defence spending by other members, and the incorporation of Eastern Europe. Terrorism was mentioned only in reference to Macedonia.
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