I think it is a certainty that Gore would not have attacked Iraq. He is far too smart and cares too much about America to do something that was, simultaneously, outrageously stupid and wholly detrimental to the best interests of the United States.
The neocons tried to pressure both the first president Bush and then Clinton to invade Iraq and try to implement there plan to spread the American way through military conquest. However, they both were too smart to go for it. Former President G.H.W. Bush, in his book ‘A World Transformed’ detailed why invading Iraq would inevitably turn into exactly the quagmire mess in which we now find ourselves.
In fact, almost every Middle East expert in the world predicted the same thing. Colin Powell even told Bush to his face , “if you break it, then you own it”. However, that did not penetrate Bush’s thick skull either. Unfortunately, slow-witted George came along and then 9/11 gave them the perfect opportunity.
Then there is the Republican Senate’s report on Iraq prewar intelligence (September 2006), which makes it clear that:
•There were NO terrorists in Iraq before Bush invaded;
•There was no connection between Iraq and Bin-Laden, Al-Qaeda, or any terrorist organization;
•Hussein did not provide training camps to terrorists;
•Hussein hated AQ before we did;
•Hussein did not hide al-Zargawi he tried to have him arrested.
And, of course, there were no weapons of mass destruction.
Bush has lost Afghanistan. The Taliban is stronger than ever there, and opium production is a record levels providing funding for terrorist organizations. Bush has lost Iraq (he had to lose there since it was never winnable). He has destroyed honor and dignity in the world community.
More importantly, if Clinton or Gore had been president in 2000, 9/11 might never have happened.
Only weeks after Clinton took office in 1993 (following 12 straight years of Republican presidents), terrorist scum tried to bring down the towers.
What did Clinton do?
•within a month, four people were arrested,
•they went on trial that September,
•the trial lasted 6 months, and
•they were all convicted
Are you aware that Clinton stopped eight 9/11-size attacks, despite a Republican Congress that tried to stop his every move?
Are you aware that the very first thing that Clinton did, as he was leaving the White House and Bush was moving in, was to tell Bush that the single greatest threat to the safety of the American people was Osama Bin-Laden. He had his staff stress to Bush’s staff that this was the most important thing Bush needed to know now that he was President.
Are you aware that on August 6, 2001, Bush received a PDBM (President's Daily Briefing Memo) warning that:
- OBL was planning an attack inside the United States, and
- that he might use airplanes, and
- that the targets would be politically important (DC) and major metropolitan centers (NYC)?
Are you aware that Bush, Rice, and the rest of the Bush administration ignored the memo?
Are you aware that the Bush administration abandoned the Israeli – Palestinian issue?
Here’s a brief summary of the differences in how Clinton and Bush dealt with America’s terrorist threat:
Clinton vs. Terror, Republicans vs. Clinton
-------------------------------------------------------
President Clinton led the fight against terrorism over strong opposition from Republicans in Congress and the pro-Republican Media. Here's a partial - yet incredibly long - list of accomplishments against terrorism for which the Clinton Administration gets almost no credit or even recognition. President Clinton:
•sent legislation to Congress to TIGHTEN AIRPORT SECURITY. (Remember, this is before 911) The legislation was defeated by the Republicans because of opposition from the airlines.
•sent legislation to Congress to allow for BETTER TRACKING OF TERRORIST FUNDING. It was defeated by Republicans in the Senate because of opposition from banking interests.
•sent legislation to Congress to add tagents to explosives, to allow for BETTER TRACKING OF EXPLOSIVES USED BY TERRORISTS. It was defeated by the Republicans because of opposition from the NRA.
When Republicans couldn't prevent executive action, President Clinton:
•Developed the nation's first anti-terrorism policy, and appointed first national coordinator.
•Stopped cold the planned attack to blow up 12 U.S. jetliners simultaneously.
•Stopped cold the planned attack to blow up UN Headquarters.
•Stopped cold the planned attack to blow up FBI Headquarters.
•Stopped cold the planned attack to blow up the Israeli Embassy in Washington.
•--Stopped cold the planned attack to blow up Boston airport.
•Stopped cold the planned attack to blow up Lincoln and Holland Tunnels in NY.
•Stopped cold the planned attack to blow up the George Washington Bridge.
•Stopped cold the planned attack to blow up the US Embassy in Albania.
•Tried to kill Osama bin Laden and disrupt Al Qaeda through preemptive strikes (efforts denounced by the G.O.P.).
•Brought perpetrators of first World Trade Center bombing and CIA killings to justice.
•Did not blame Bush I administration for first World Trade Center bombing even though it occurred 38 days after they had left office. Instead, worked hard, even obsessively -- and successfully -- to stop future terrorist attacks.
•Named the Hart-Rudman commission to report on nature of terrorist threats and major steps to be taken to combat terrorism.
•Tripled the budget of the FBI for counterterrorism and doubled overall funding for counterterrorism.
•Detected and destroyed cells of Al Qaeda in over 20 countries
•Created a national stockpile of drugs and vaccines including 40 million doses of smallpox vaccine.
•Robert Oakley, Reagan Counterterrorism Czar says of Clinton's efforts "Overall, I give them very high marks" and "The only major criticism I have is the obsession with Osama"
•Paul Bremer, Bush's Administrator of Iraq disagrees slightly with Robert Oakley saying he believed the Clinton Administration had "correctly focused on bin Laden. "
•Barton Gellman of the Washington Post put it best, "By any measure available, Clinton left office having given greater priority to terrorism than any president before him" and was the "first administration to undertake a systematic anti-terrorist effort."
Here, in stark contrast, is part of the Bush-Cheney anti-terrorism record before September 11, 2001:
oBacked off Clinton administration's anti-terrorism efforts.
oShelved the Hart-Rudman report.
oAppointed new anti-terrorism task force under Dick Cheney. Group did not even meet before 9/11.
oCalled for cuts in anti-terrorism efforts by the Department of Defense.
oGave no priority to anti-terrorism efforts by Justice Department.
oIgnored warnings from Sandy Berger, Louis Freeh, George Tennant, Paul Bremer, and Richard Clarke about the urgency of terrorist threats.
oWatered Down 1996 Clinton Anti-Terrorism Bill, Thanks to Lott & Hatch
oHalted Predator drone tracking of Osama bin Laden.
oDid nothing in wake of August 6 C.I.A. report to president saying Al Qaeda attack by hijack of an airliner almost certain.
oBush - knowing about the terrorists' plans to attack in America, warned that terrorists were in flight schools in the US - took a four week vacation.
oBy failing to order any coordination of intelligence data, missed opportunity to stop the 9/11 plot as Clinton-Gore had stopped the millennium plots.
--------------------------------------
An Excuse-Spouting Bush Is Busted by 9/11 Report
As early as May 2001, the FBI was receiving tips that Bin Laden supporters were planning attacks in the U.S., possibly including the hijacking of planes. On May 29, White House counter-terrorism chief Richard Clarke wrote national security advisor Condoleezza Rice that when these attacks [on Israeli or U.S. facilities] occur, as they likely will, we will wonder what more we could have done to stop them.
At the end of June, the commission wrote, "the intelligence reporting consistently described the upcoming attacks as occurring on a calamitous level." In early July, Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft was told "that preparations for multiple attacks [by Al Qaeda] were in late stages or already complete and that little additional warning could be expected." By month's end, "the system was blinking red" and could not "get any worse," then-CIA Director George Tenet told the 9/11 commission.
It was at this point, of course, that George W. Bush began the longest presidential vacation in 32 years. On the very first day of his visit to his Texas ranch, Aug. 6, Bush received the now-infamous two-page intelligence alert titled, Bin Laden Determined to Attack in the United States. Yet instead of returning to the capital to mobilize an energetic defensive posture, he spent an additional 27 days away as the government languished in summer mode, in deep denial.
"In sum," said the 9/11 commission report, "the domestic agencies never mobilized in response to the threat..."
http://www.globalissues.org/Geopolitics/WarOnTerr [...]
If only he HAD done nothing, but he actually made the situation worse.
Soon after inauguration, Bush quietly ended the Cole investigation and withdrew the team of over 100 FBI and JTTF (Joint Terrorism Task Force) agents that Clinton had sent to Yemen to investigate the Cole bombing.
Then, in March of 2001, when the task force sent the White House their final report, which implicated bin Laden and named al Qaeda operative Khalid Shaikh Mohammed as the architect of the bombing, Bush and Rice simply shelved the report and took no action against al Qaeda. Mohammed went on to be the chief architect of the 9/11 attacks.
Later, after Mohammed was captured in Pakistan, he told his American interrogators that it was specifically Bush's failure to follow through with the Cole investigation - and particularly his failure to come after Mohammed - that convinced him that al Qaeda could mount the 9/11 attacks and get away with them.
It will always be a moot question whether White House diligence and attention could have prevented the 9/11 attacks, but it is a given that failure to act against the Cole bombers and failure to heed the multiple warnings about future attacks simply opened our doors wide to attack and made bin Laden's task simple.