Vice-President Cheney and National Security Advisor Rice were at the center of the storm, but left few fingerprints. They were the President's advisors and attended many of the presidential daily briefings and special terrorist briefings.
National Security Advisor Rice worked near the Oval Office and her main job was to focus on problems of major concern to the President. Terrorism was not one of them. On the day of the attacks, she was supposed to give a speech on the "threats of today." Her speech promoted a missile shield defense against rogue states and contained no reference to numerous warnings of the upcoming terrorist attacks on our country. She, of course, never gave that speech.
There were opportunities for Rice to pull together members of the National Security Council, lay out the alarming evidence and ask members to present their views front and center to the President. Outside experts, such as former Presidents and Secretaries of State, could have been called in for advice on what essentially was a war-time situation. The ideal time would have been just after the CIA Director's urgent visit to the White House pleading for immediate military action now. David Ignatius, of the Washington Post, put it this way:
"...nothing would have prevented the national security advisor from mobilizing anti-terrorism policy against al-Qaeda in the months before 9/11. That's what makes this story a tragedy that existing institutions of government might have averted the disaster, if they had taken action".
Vice-President Cheney had the lead role in the White House on terrorism and intelligence and was told repeatedly in CIA briefings that we are going to be hit again. As noted in Gellman's book on the Vice-Presidency, Cheney described the al-Qaeda warnings as a "noise in the system", saying he was not especially alarmed. Yet, one has to ask how could specific warnings from three Heads of State and foreign intelligence sources all involving a similar pattern -- be considered a "noise in the system"?
Earlier in the spring, Cheney had helped derail congressional hearings on terrorism and the proposed Homeland Security Agency by taking on the job himself of preparing a defense against domestic attacks. His project never got underway. In his book, Gellman reports that President Bush agreed to chair a meeting of the National Security Council to review the Vice-President's efforts against domestic attacks. The President never held such a meeting. Gellman further discloses that a three-star general on the White House National Security staff (Donald Kerrick) found little interest in terrorism on the part of top officials, including the Vice-President.
It is important to understand that Cheney and Rumsfeld operated in tandem. They had worked together in a previous administration and had been close friends for decades. If the Vice-President had taken an interest in the threat, the chances are that Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld would have too. The unwillingness of either Cheney or Rumsfeld to respond to the threat paralyzed the administration's national security apparatus. Only the President could have taken charge and made a difference.
President Bush never took control of the situation or put the nation in a crisis mode. For example, he did not:
à ‚¬ Call a National Security Council or cabinet meeting to coordinate a government response to the imminent al-Qaeda threat.
à ‚¬ Ask the Joint Chiefs for military options.
à ‚¬ Grant the CIA Director his twice requested covert authority to kill or capture Bin Laden.
à ‚¬ Act on the obvious requirement to protect commercial aviation.
à ‚¬ Alert the American people to the danger.
In early September, the National Security Council submitted a strategy to the President to eliminate al-Qaeda in 3-5 years. This long-term strategy "deferred decisions on what to spend, which steps to implement and when". It had no relevance to the immediate threat. At the Council meeting Rumsfeld appeared more interested in Iraq.
As the CIA Director had urged back in July, the time to act was now that very moment. The CIA Director's private view, as confided to Bob Woodard of the Washington Post, is that "he had sounded the loudest warning he could -- it hadn't been heeded." He thought the earlier White House meeting in July was a tremendous lost opportunity to prevent or disrupt the 9/11 attacks.
The Terror Timeline book, which had documented the many advance warnings from our foreign allies, has about 1400 entries based on thousands of sources. It was published concurrently with the Commission report and concluded that:
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