Blitzer failed to challenge Townsend's claims about Bush administration's pre-9-11 terror record

Appearing on the September 25 edition of CNN's The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer, Frances Townsend, homeland security adviser to President Bush, claimed that "there's no question that terrorism was a priority" in the Bush administration before 9-11, and that "[t]here had been multiple meetings" to that effect. Townsend also claimed that no one in the Bush administration was familiar with a "comprehensive strategy to proceed with the war on terror," which former President Clinton said he left with the incoming administration. Blitzer failed to challenge Townsend on either of these statements, even though the 9-11 Commission found to the contrary.

For example, regarding Townsend's claim that "[t]here had been multiple meetings" dealing with terrorism, the 9-11 Commission Report found that Richard Clarke, the counterterrorism czar under Clinton and Bush urgently called for a meeting of the National Security Council's principals committee -- a committee from which Clarke was removed upon his demotion by the Bush administration -- to discuss the Al Qaeda threat. That meeting, however, was deferred for eight months, though the principals had met to discuss other issues during that time. According to the report:

He [Clarke] wanted the Principals Committee to decide whether al Qaeda was "a first order threat" or a more modest worry being overblown by "chicken little" alarmists. Alluding to the transition briefing that he had prepared for Rice, Clarke wrote that al Qaeda "is not some narrow, little terrorist issue that needs to be included in broader regional policy." Two key decisions that had been deferred, he noted, concerned covert aid to keep the Northern Alliance alive when fighting began again in Afghanistan in the spring, and covert aid to the Uzbeks. Clarke also suggested that decisions should be made soon on messages to the Taliban and Pakistan over the al Qaeda sanctuary in Afghanistan, on possible new money for CIA operations, and on "when and how . . . to respond to the attack on the USS Cole."

The national security advisor did not respond directly to Clarke's memorandum. No Principals Committee meeting on al Qaeda was held until September 4, 2001 (although the Principals Committee met frequently on other subjects, such as the Middle East peace process, Russia, and the Persian Gulf). But Rice and Hadley began to address the issues Clarke had listed. What to do or say about the Cole had been an obvious question since inauguration day. When the attack occurred, 25 days before the election, candidate Bush had said to CNN, "I hope that we can gather enough intelligence to figure out who did the act and take the necessary action. There must be a consequence." Since the Clinton administration had not responded militarily, what was the Bush administration to do?

Clarke went into more detail in his book, Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror (Free Press, 2004):

Within a week of the Inauguration I wrote to Rice and Hadley asking "urgently" for a Principals, or Cabinet-level, meeting to review the imminent al Qaeda threat. Rice told me that the Principals Committee, which had been the first venue for terrorism policy discussions in the Clinton administration, would not address the issue until it had been "framed" by the Deputies. I assumed this meant an opportunity for the Deputies to review the agenda. Instead, it meant months of delay. The initial Deputies meeting to review terrorism policy could not be scheduled in February. Nor could it occur in March. Finally in April, the Deputies Committee met on terrorism for the first time. The first meeting, in the small wood-paneled Situation Room conference room, did not go well. [pp. 230-231]

[...]

The delay in the Deputies Committee continued in the spring of 2001, in part because of Hadley's methodical, lawerly style. It was his idea to slowly build a consensus that action was required, "to educate the Deputies." The truth was also that the Principals Committee was meeting with a full agenda and a backlog of Bush priority issues: the Antiballistic Missile Treaty, the Kyoto environment agreement, and Iraq. There was no time for terrorism. [p. 234]

[...]

On September 4, 2001, the Principals Committee meeting on al Qaeda that I had called for "urgently" on January 25 finally met. [p. 237]

Townsend went on to suggest that Clinton had lied during a contentious interview with Fox News' Chris Wallace, aired on September 24, during which the former president claimed: "So I tried and failed [to kill bin Laden]. When I failed, I left a comprehensive anti-terror strategy and the best guy in the country, Dick Clarke, who got demoted." Townsend said:

TOWNSEND: President Clinton also mentioned having left behind a comprehensive strategy to proceed with the war on terror, and I'm not familiar that anybody in the administration at the time -- the Bush administration, when they came in -- is familiar with that.

Again, the 9-11 Commission report contradicts Townsend. According to the report, near the end of 2000, the CIA and the National Security Council drew up policy papers that laid out anti-terrorism strategies for the succeeding administration. While the report said that the CIA/NSC memo, known as the "Blue Sky memo" was not "discussed during the transition with incoming top Bush administration officials," its ideas were nonetheless presented as options by the CIA to the Bush administration. Clarke and his staff also drafted a counterterrorism strategy memo in the waning days of the Clinton administration, which the 9-11 Commission Report described as "the first such comprehensive effort since the Delenda plan of 1998 [a paper written by Clarke laying out a strategy to "immediately eliminate any significant threat to Americans" from the "Bin Ladin network"]. The resulting paper, entitled 'Strategy for Eliminating the Threat from the Jihadist Networks of al Qida [sic]: Status and Prospects,' reviewed the threat and the record to date, incorporated the CIA's new ideas from the Blue Sky memo, and posed several near-term policy options."

Clarke, the report noted, presented his policy paper to Rice and other senior national security staffers when he requested the principals committee meeting on Al Qaeda:

Within the first few days after Bush's inauguration, Clarke approached Rice in an effort to get her-and the new President-to give terrorism very high priority and to act on the agenda that he had pushed during the last few months of the previous administration. After Rice requested that all senior staff identify desirable major policy reviews or initiatives, Clarke submitted an elaborate memorandum on January 25, 2001. He attached to it his 1998 Delenda Plan and the December 2000 strategy paper. "We urgently need ... a Principals level review on the al Qida network," Clarke wrote.

Clarke also noted Clinton's enduring contributions to the war on terrorism in Against All Enemies:

Clinton left office with bin Laden alive, but having authorized actions to eliminate him and to step up the attacks on al Qaeda. He had defeated al Qaeda when it had attempted to take over Bosnia by having its fighters dominate the defense of the breakaway state from Serbian attacks. He had seen earlier than anyone that terrorism would be the new major threat facing America, and therefore had greatly increased funding for counterterrorism and initiated homeland protection programs. He had put an end to Iraqi and Iranian terrorism against the United States by quickly acting against the intelligence services of each nation.

[...]

Because Clinton was criticized as a Vietnam War opponent without a military record, he was limited in his ability to direct the military to engage in anti-terrorist commando operations they did not want to conduct. He had tried that in Somalia, and the military had made mistakes and blamed him. In the absence of a bigger provocation from al Qaeda to silence his critics, Clinton thought he could do no more. Nonetheless, he put in place the plans and programs that allowed America to respond to the big attacks when they did come, sweeping away the political barriers to action.

From the September 24 edition of CNN's The Situation Room:

BLITZER: Well, we're almost out of time, but why didn't the president, President Bush, do anything about that Al Qaeda attack on the USS Cole after he took office, before 9-11?

TOWNSEND: Well, there was no question that terrorism was a priority. There had been multiple meetings. President Clinton also mentioned having left behind a comprehensive strategy for to go -- proceed with the war on terror, and I'm not familiar that anybody in the administration at the time -- the Bush administration, when they came in -- is familiar with that.

BLITZER: Fran Townsend, we're going to have to leave it there, but we'll continue this down the road. Thanks very much for joining us.

TOWNSEND: Thank you, Wolf.