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42 | The Nature of the Enemy

P

ogo the co, Mic stRip possuM, famously observed, “We have met

the enemy and he is us.” The commission concluded that 9/11, like

Pearl Harbor, stemmed in large part from bureaucratic inertia, com-

pounded by politics. When Bill Clinton gave his successor a final briefing

on national security issues just before leaving office, he recalls saying,

“One of the great regrets of my presidency is that I didn’t get him (bin

Laden) for you, because I tried to.”

After the attack on the USS Cole, ambiguous reports about al-Qaida’s

culpability caused indecision among the Pentagon, the State Department,

the FBI and CIA. Should the U.S. give an ultimatum to the Taliban to

cough up bin Laden or else? And what about collateral damage that might

further inflame the Islamic world? Absent actionable intelligence—that

phrase punctuates everything—the lame-duck president was worried

about being accused of launching “wag the dog” air strikes in Afghani-

stan to try and help elect his vice president.^1

The protracted battle for the White House complicated the transition

to a new administration and created a dangerous period of vulnerability,

Gorton and Gorelick wrote later. “As always, the crowd coming in was

dismissive of the concerns of the crowd going out.” With nominations to

some key posts delayed, Bush took too long to set priorities for his na-

tional-security team. By then the attack on the Cole was yesterday’s news.

They decided to regroup and push ahead with a new plan. It was a rational

political decision, Gorton says, “but that guy in the cave in Afghanistan is

thinking, ‘What a bunch of paper tigers! We kill 17 sailors and almost

sink one of their ships and they don’t even shoot a rocket over here.’”^2

Gorton believes the decision to not follow up forcefully on the attack on

the Cole led directly to 9/11, a view shared by Bob Kerrey and John Lehman,

the former Navy secretary who served on the commission. “Al-Qaida

didn’t think we’d react to 9/11,” Gorton says. “They must have thought

we’d just find somebody and put him on trial in New York City after six

or seven years. Can’t you hear Bin Laden and his lieutenants saying,