COUNTERCOLUMN: All Your Bias Are Belong to Us

The New York Sun is reporting that the 9/11 Commission found that former Kerry Advisor and classified-doc kleptomaniac Sandy Berger vetoed numerous staff recommendations to attack Bin Ladin and Al Qaeda between 1998 and 2001.

Well, look now to what the 9/11 report has to say about the man to whom President Clinton, under attack by an independent counsel,delegated so much in respect of national security, Samuel “Sandy” Berger. The report cites a 1998 meeting between Mr. Berger and the director of central intelligence, George Tenet, at which Mr. Tenet presented a plan to capture Osama bin Laden.

“In his meeting with Tenet, Berger focused most, however, on the question of what was to be done with Bin Ladin if he were actually captured. He worried that the hard evidence against Bin Ladin was still skimpy and that there was a danger of snatching him and bringing him to the United States only to see him acquitted,” the report says, citing a May 1, 1998, Central Intelligence Agency memo summarizing the weekly meeting between Messrs. Berger and Tenet.

In June of 1999, another plan for action against Mr. bin Laden was on the table. The potential target was a Qaeda terrorist camp in Afghanistan known as Tarnak Farms. The commission report released yesterday cites Mr. Berger’s “handwritten notes on the meeting paper” referring to “the presence of 7 to 11 families in the Tarnak Farms facility, which could mean 60-65 casualties.”According to the Berger notes, “if he responds, we’re blamed.”

On December 4, 1999, the National Security Council’s counterterrorism coordinator, Richard Clarke, sent Mr. Berger a memo suggesting a strike in the last week of 1999 against Al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan. Reports the commission: “In the margin next to Clarke’s suggestion to attack Al Qaeda facilities in the week before January 1, 2000, Berger wrote, ‘no.’ ”

In August of 2000, Mr. Berger was presented with another possible plan for attacking Mr. bin Laden.This time, the plan would be based on aerial surveillance from a “Predator” drone. Reports the commission: “In the memo’s margin,Berger wrote that before considering action, ‘I will want more than verified location: we will need, at least, data on pattern of movements to provide some assurance he will remain in place.’ ”

In other words, according to the commission report, Mr. Berger was presented with plans to take action against the threat of Al Qaeda four separate times — Spring 1998, June 1999, December 1999, and August 2000. Each time, Mr. Berger was an obstacle to action. Had he been a little less reluctant to act, a little more open to taking pre-emptive action, maybe the 2,973 killed in the September 11, 2001, attacks would be alive today.

Well, maybe. Maybe not. Maybe there would have been some other plot. All is fair game, but the last line is a bit of a cheap shot.

Nevertheless, this is someone Kerry looked to for advice on how to deal with terrorism. Here's a sneak preview of Kerry's policy. And he STILL would be a senior Kerry advisor if the investigation hadn't leaked out. And very likely a senior member of Kerry's cabinet.

Kerry got rid of him because he was inconvenient. Not because he was weak.

Further: Berger was an advisor, not an executive. When in doubt, advisors ought to move the decision up to the President.

Why didn't Berger put the decision in front of the commander in chief?

Berger's done more than misplace documents. Berger forgot his own place, too.

I can't believe this guy stayed in such a key post for so long.

Splash, out

Jason