Should Bush be held responsible for 9/11 ?

Trump never said Bush was responsible…he pointed out 9/11 happened while Bush was in charge and suggested that if he were President it would not have happened as his immigration policies would have prevented terrorists from getting in. Easy to say harder to do. Political grandstanding at its finest! The media and the gullible are eagerly eating this nonsense up.

Only if Hillary was responsible for Bengazi.

A lot of people already hold him responsible for 9/11, not simply because it happened on his watch, but because he knew that the danger was imminent and ignored it. However, imposing any sort of punishment, even on paper, is probably unrealistic.

If there were any sort of consequences to Bush’s actions, it would make much more sense for them to follow the war with Iraq, which he knew was misdirected, and which cost far more lives (not that that matters ethically, I suppose) than the unrelated 9/11 attack.

No Bush is no more responsible for 9/11 than he is for hurricane Katrina. And it’s ludicrous to conflate the lunacies of Islamic fanatics with the former ambitions of Imperial Japan.

Yes, or at least his administration is. Yes, if he is one of the “Buck stops here” type President then it is his, if not, he can pawn the blame off on underlings.

All the warning signs were there but they focused on justifying their upcoming Iraq invasion to the detriment of all else. Washington Post article

When has a US President been held responsible for anything, before or after Watergate?

If you take pride in saying you kept us safe (a lot of campaign ads in 2004) you have to take responsibility for when you didn’t.

So say shit happens, but don’t to try and claim credit when it doesn’t.

And for the folks that think 9/11 was only a year into his term how long would it take for him not run on keeping us safe?

@dappled_leaves I think the weight of 9/11 more falls on the shoulders of Bill Clinton as he/they were well aware of his growing command of al Qaeda forces and he passed on a golden opportunity to take out Bin Laden many years prior. Bush takes office…professes our countries support for Israel and we get then take one in our homeland because of a series of lapses of awareness from the top on down all because purportedly Bill didn’t have the fortitude to pull the trigger when it was time.

@filmfann: “Trump thinks so.”

We don’t have to waste too many calories analyzing Trump’s statements. Remember, Trump’s a birther and allows people to claim that Obama is a Muslim in his presence without refuting them. Trump speaks in headlines from the The Onion. His statements are not thoughtful comments or legitimate policy proposals. He’s playing a game.

Speaking of The Onion.

@Cruiser Clinton didn’t come until after Reagan and G.W. Bush though, and we already know that there was an issue that could’ve been nipped in the bud. In fact, it should’ve been headed off. Wasn’t that the entire point of Desert Storm to begin with? I mean, it should’ve ended about the time I was floating around the Persian Gulf, not haunted us decades (plural!) after I got my DD214. And honestly, I’m inclined to fault people closer to the genesis anyways. Especially those that sent arms to… well, it would appear nearly everyone in the region.

BTW, who was president when we missed Bin Laden again in 2007?

Yes @jerv You or I can rewind the newsreels of time and lay blame every frame of the film…. to me it come down to the one who has their hands on the wheel of the bus we are riding on….Bill got a free pass that gave GW a bulls eye on this back when he became president and the same is easily said of the greenhorn President we have despite all his Kings and all his Kings horses who has no real clue as to how to conduct foreign policy on the worlds stage. Despite their own problems…Russia has no problem openly mocking Obama and our nations weak tit and more than confused at best response to Syria, Libya and especially Iran and Israel. We could not appear more clueless as a Nation and one of the Dem front runners is one whose husband perpetuated this hot mess and somehow thinks she is the one to solve these problems. Seriously??

Republicans Sabotaged Clinton’s Anti-Terror Efforts

Bush Administration’s First Memo on al-Qaeda Declassified

Testimony of Richard Clarke, former White House counterterrorism coordinator:

TIMOTHY ROEMER, Commission Member: OK. With my 15 minutes, let’s move into the Bush administration.

On January 25th, we’ve seen a memo that you’ve written to Dr. Rice urgently asking for a principals’ review of Al Qaida. You include helping the Northern Alliance, covert aid, significant new ‘02 budget authority to help fight Al Qaida and a response to the USS Cole. You attach to this document both the Delenda Plan of 1998 and a strategy paper from December 2000.

Do you get a response to this urgent request for a principals meeting on these? And how does this affect your time frame for dealing with these important issues?

CLARKE: I did get a response, and the response was that in the Bush administration I should, and my committee, counterterrorism security group, should report to the deputies committee, which is a sub-Cabinet level committee, and not to the principals and that, therefore, it was inappropriate for me to be asking for a principals’ meeting. Instead, there would be a deputies meeting.

ROEMER: So does this slow the process down to go to the deputies rather than to the principals or a small group as you had previously done?

CLARKE: It slowed it down enormously, by months. First of all, the deputies committee didn’t meet urgently in January or February. Then when the deputies committee did meet, it took the issue of Al Qaida as part of a cluster of policy issues, including nuclear proliferation in South Asia, democratization in Pakistan, how to treat the various problems, including narcotics and other problems in Afghanistan, and launched on a series of deputies meetings extending over several months to address Al Qaida in the context of all of those inter-related issues. That process probably ended, I think in July of 2001. So we were ready for a principals meeting in July. But the principals calendar was full and then they went on vacation, many of them in August, so we couldn’t meet in August, and therefore the principals met in September.

…

ROEMER: You then wrote a memo on September 4th to Dr. Rice expressing some of these frustrations several months later, if you say the time frame is May or June when you decided to resign. A memo comes out that we have seen on September the 4th. You are blunt in blasting DOD for not willingly using the force and the power. You blast the CIA for blocking Predator. You urge policy-makers to imagine a day after hundreds of Americans lay dead at home or abroad after a terrorist attack and ask themselves what else they could have done. You write this on September the 4th, seven days before September 11th.

CLARKE: That’s right.

ROEMER: What else could have been done, Mr. Clarke?

CLARKE: Well, all of the things that we recommended in the plan or strategy—there’s a lot of debate about whether it’s a plan or a strategy or a series of options—but all of the things we recommended back in January were those things on the table in September. They were done. They were done after September 11th. They were all done. I didn’t really understand why they couldn’t have been done in February.

“Clarke charged that before and during the 9/11 crisis, many in the Administration were distracted from efforts against Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda organization by a pre-occupation with Iraq and Saddam Hussein. Clarke had written that on September 12, 2001, President Bush pulled him and a couple of aides aside and “testily” asked him to try to find evidence that Saddam was connected to the terrorist attacks. In response he wrote a report stating there was no evidence of Iraqi involvement and got it signed by all relevant agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the CIA. The paper was quickly returned by a deputy with a note saying “Please update and resubmit.”

Hell, no! On both counts. Humanity itself is responsible. After all, we are what we are.

@Cruiser ”[T]o me it come down to the one who has their hands on the wheel of the bus we are riding on”

In that case, you do blame G.W. Bush for 9/11.

No offense, but I cannot help but laugh at a trend I noticed decades ago. When things go well, Conservatives ALWAYS say that it’s always the result of Republican president’s actions, even if delayed by many years and a Democrat is in office, but when things go wrong it’s always the Democrat’s fault no matter what. And the contortions required to try and sell a story, especially when they re-twist it and try again after being called out…

I am laughing so I don’t cry. Please, don’t be a cliche of a stereotype! Don’t be that guy, @Cruiser! Please don’t! I thought you were better than that!

I couldn’t even read the second half of your post or any of the posts following it; it was that heartbreaking.

As far as i’m aware, Bush did not pilot any of the planes, so no, he shouldn’t.

@Cruiser Upon further reflection, I think that we are just proving how those with strong opinions have a little trouble with objectivity. How about if we just agree to disagree on this question and move on? You cool with that?

@ucme One of the downsides of authority is that it often comes with responsibility. When you have authority over people, you are responsible for their actions. When a civilian contractor was killed on my first ship, our skipper was responsible. Why? It was his boat!

Answering this question requires one separating accountability from culpability. That’s a downside to using words that have multiple meanings.

@jerv I have a very unique perspective on 9/11 as I had the most unfortunate experience of being in a plane that day…being terrified and fearing for my life is an experience that will never leave my memory. From that day on till today and till the day I die I will seek the truth of fateful day. And withing mere days I was stunned at how much more Clinton AND Bush could have done to stop Osama before he masterminded more carnage upon the west. There is an article out there that is pretty telling that I cannot find at the moment…in it;s absence you can read this that clearly identifies the Taliban as a real threat to the West that in hind sight there is additionally a lot of damning evidence we could have and should have done more…

If Mr Bush or Mr Gore ever make it to the White House, they need to begin a robust but constructive dialogue with Afghanistan.”

Another article for your reading pleasure

I am more than stunned to see you defending Bush….I must have fallen down the Rabbit hole.

I think that we should hold the Supreme Court responsible for 9/11 – after all, they elected Bush.

@jerv Yeah thanks for that exercise in stating the bloody obvious, but essentially, my point stands, albeit with my tongue firmly planted in my cheek.

@Cruiser Unfortunate, but far from unique. Enough other people were (and still are) scared enough to lend weight to the theory that Al Qaeda has already won. I have also seen many things that have compared the GOP to the Taliban, a parallel that I thought of myself when I was telling my high school classmates why going to Iraq at all would cause issues for our equipment and turn into a logistical nightmare before settling on a quagmire.

How long did it take to settle the issue and defeat the post-Saddam insurgency by an opportunistic Shi’ite third-party or at least weaken them enough that the Iraqi government could take over with near-zero intervention by or support from the US? It’s taking (emphasis on current tense) long enough to fit my idea of “quagmire”, and cost enough to be a logistical nightmare by itself for sheer finances, never mind the shortages of batteries and armored Humvees, or the issues we had with sand getting into helo engines because our equipment was not designed for desert use. Hell, we’ll even overlook our mediocre track record against foes not of Western European descent, most notably in armed conflict with a particular Asian culture who has very different ideas about casualties (both suicide missions and collateral civilians) and rules of engagement than we do and the fact that it’s been a while since a Christian invaded Muslim lands thus lending enough credence to it all being another Crusade to at least make some jokes.

Looking at who was around G.W. Bush, most notably Cheney, I’m inclined to give the benefit of a doubt and say that there at least may have been some selective editing of intelligence that W used to make his decisions… or that Cheney ignored when he made decisions for W when he had the wheel. (VPs are not entirely for decoration; they sometimes make executive decisions.) The groundwork was laid well before Clinton, but I also think Bush Sr. was sincere enough in his actions that it wasn’t a malicious mistake/oversight either.

That said, while I have respect for some of what Reagan did in his first term, especially simplifying the tax code, I can’t help but wonder if his Alzheimers wasn’t starting to kick in just a little bit during his second term. I know that I’ve pulled some shenanigans when I’ve had a boss that wasn’t 100% “with it”... though nothing on the magnitude of selling arms to Iran. Some stars wait too long to retire, and I think Reagan was “a bit tired” from ‘84 to ‘86 and pathetically ineffective for the last two years he was in office. I also feel that, like his father before him, G.W. Bush was a sincere man who actions were well-intended. Possibly misguided, unwise, overzealous, or just plain half-assed, but not malicious.

I respect some Conservatives, specifically the intelligent moderate ones like G.H.W. Bush and (pre-‘86) Reagan. The Conservatives I have issues with are those whom I feel are delusionally unrealistic on economics and those socially conservative enough to do all the same things Muslim extremists do only with a Bible instead of a Quran. I also feel that when Jeb and G.W. Bush were growing up, each only got half of their father’s wisdom and intelligence.

@jerv It’s too bad you cannot see the forest through the trees as our international AND domestic problems are not result of solely Republican policy. Most military decisions and foreign policies are by committee and voted on by Congress which though often partisan has to have bi partisan support. It is easy to judge history in the rear view mirror and be an expert on good or bad decisions. For me it is the symbolic military decisions that have gotten us in the most trouble. Cutting off the snakes head decisions like taking out Sadam and Bin Laden removed leaders who maintained a relatively stable reign over their people and in their absence matters are now 10 times worse. Again the Republicans didn’t make those decisions nor did Bush and Obama solely make those decisions. Both those decisions were years in the making again with input and support from both sides of the isle and most often with the support of their constituents.

@Cruiser Not solely, no. But when given a choice between casual ineptitude and fervent wrongdoing, I’ll side with the person who gets things wrong by accident over the one claiming their shit doesn’t stink, especially when the “I shit rose petals!” crowd does other things that I see as a threat.

I think it safe to say that, in that region of the world, leaders are either heavy-handed authoritarians (Saddam Hussein, Ayatollah Khomeini…) or utterly ineffective. I agree that more planning should’ve gone into the aftermath than just assuming that we will be embraced as liberators, marry the prince, and live happily ever after life some Disney™ movie.

” Both those decisions were years in the making again with input and support from both sides of the isle and most often with the support of their constituents.”

Maybe when the GOP was still rational and wiling to compromise and “big money” didn’t trump vox populi, but I don’t think that’s happened for a while. I think that the truth of your statement varies depending on what year we’re talking here and consequently which Bush we’re talking; the post-Clinton one we had for 9/11 in a world already gone mad or the pre-Clinton one who was also VP when Reagan was dealing with Iran (by arming Iraq… while his underlings sold weapons to Iran…). While both governed roughly the same, the two of them lead pretty different worlds because more than a few things changed in the eight years between them.

I give Clinton a pass on this solely because I think he was too busy chasing interns to cause more problems than we already had at the time.

~Bush was elected to lead not to read.