Presidential advisers should be experts in their fields, and Condoleezza Rice is certainly an expert on the former Soviet Union. She might have been a good National Security Adviser (NSA) during the Reagan Administration but has been a dismal failure as the current NSA.

Rice spent 1999 tutoring Bush so he wouldn’t appear to be an imbecile when questioned about foreign policy. Perhaps she should have trained her keen intellect on how the world had changed since the Reagan Administration. The cold war threats of ballistic missiles and large armies had been replaced by the threat of extremist Islam.

In February of 2001 the director of the CIA, George Tenet, testified before Congress that terrorism was the main threat facing the United States. Sandy Berger, the Clinton Administration’s NSA, advised incoming Rice that al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden would be their biggest concern.

Rice says the administration had terrorism as a high priority. If we, as citizens, can judge an administration’s priorities based on their comments, then she was not being truthful. Many analysts have looked at all utterances of Bush and Rice during the campaign and the months leading up to Sept. 11. Al-Qaida crossed their lips a whopping zero times. Terrorism was used only in reference to “rogue states.”

In the summer of 2001, when the threat levels were off the charts, there were still no public utterances about terrorism. It took until Sept. 4 for the White House to hold the first high-level meeting about the terrorist threat.

Things might have turned out differently if Bush had said this during one of the daily briefings by Tenet during the summer of 2001: “George, this is really getting old, you coming in here with your hair on fire and all. Get the FBI in here because I want to bang some heads together and find out what is going on.”

Several White House insiders have described Bush as “disengaged” and “uninterested.” Even so, wouldn’t reports of “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.” and “FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for “hijackings” roused the president?

With such a spectacular failure of our government at all levels to detect and prevent Sept. 11, it is surprising nobody has lost their job. The current administration places blame on everyone but themselves, but let’s hope the American people know better.

Ted Peterson

Alumnus

Ames