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Originally posted by Not Me
I think the main point of his testimony was that the lack of a response to the USS Cole bombing emboldened AQ.
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Interesting thing I read in the transcripts of yesterday's testimony was that the Commission believes that the link between OBL and the Cole attack was not established until Bush took office. The Bush team's response was as follows:
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Deputy National Security Advisor Steven Hadley told us that tit for that, military options were so inadequate that they might have emboldened Al Qaida. He said the Bush administration's response to the Cole would be a new, more aggressive strategy against Al Qaida. Pentagon officials, including Vice Admiral Scott Fry and Undersecretary Slocombe, told us they cautioned that the military response options were limited. Bin Laden continued to be elusive. They were still skeptical that hitting inexpensive and rudimentary training camps with costly missiles would do much good. The new team at the Pentagon did not push for a response for the Cole, according to Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz, his deputy.
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Please note that I don't absolve the Clinton admin for their part in the lack of a response.
But to follow up on Atticus's point, how exactly does the lack of a response to the Cole bombing get this out of Rumsfeld's kitchen?
