During the Bush campaign, I wrote Condi a letter. I offered to send her my recent book on the threat of global politics to democracy at home, "Must Global Politics Constrain Democracy?" I pointed out that all recent American presidents had refused to sign international agreements like the Land Mine Treaty, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the International Criminal Court that affirm a common good for most of the people of the world. I didn't know much about Bush, I wrote, but surely a Republican could break with this practice, and sign a few common good-promoting agreements. After all, I said, the United States no longer has a great power enemy and could lead the world in the quest for peace and the rule of law.

My letter, obviously, was not prescient. Condi did not answer.

How did this comparatively thoughtful person end up missing the threat of al-Qaida? As she grew more conservative, it became useful to her to emphasize only great power politics and military arrangements. She knew Russia and Eastern Europe, but not other areas of the world. She apparently did not -- despite Richard Clarke's and Sandy Berger's warnings -- take al-Qaida seriously. In her testimony on Thursday before the 9/11 commission, she differed with Clarke's claims that 100 meetings of the "principals" -- the main secretaries not including Clarke  occurred without once discussing al-Qaida. There were only 33 meetings, she said. But 33 is many meetings without discussing al-Qaida. This is a minor tangent, not a defense.

Clarke fiercely tried to get al-Qaida before the Bush administration. He was consistently frustrated. Eventually, he and his top three aides, all of whom stayed in the White House at Condi's request on 9/11, left government service. The Bush administration has undercut -- perhaps destroyed -- responsible career civil service in many areas. Secretary of the Treasury Paul O'Neill charged that this administration has only political discussions, not policy ones. But worse yet, it may have destroyed its civil service, which is a precondition for serious evidence gathering and deliberation over policy. On 9/11, Condi prepared to give a major speech -- on a missile defense system for the United States.

How did Condi end up supporting a diversionary war in Iraq? The 9/11 committee did not ask her to address Clarke's fundamental charge. Like a "warrior princess" (her aides' nickname) in a fairy tale, Condi simply ignored it. She was allowed to reiterate lies, for example an elliptical statement that al-Qaida had some connection with Saddam and the bizarre claim that a "strategic" offensive against al-Qaida involved Iraq. She presented no evidence for these claims.

As Paul O'Neill and Richard Clarke have reported, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld and Cheney had been determined to overthrow Saddam from the earliest days of the Bush administration. (Clarke was outraged on Sept. 12 when Rumsfeld defended this position by saying there were no good targets in Afghanistan, but lots in Iraq. As Clarke said, it would be as if, after Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt had gone to war with Mexico, not Japan.) But Condi is not simply an ideologue: Even in the pressure cooker of war meetings, she probably still noticed that there was no hard evidence that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction or was linked to al-Qaida. She must have known that the administration was suppressing counter-evidence from the CIA, the "bulldog" Clarke, and others.

Yet she could not say to her boss and the others: wait a minute. She could not draw a line in defense of principle: the United States' government must wage the "War on Terrorism" on al-Qaida, not on dictators who had nothing to do with terrorism. If the president is going to launch a "preventive" attack on a sovereign state -- a violation of the cardinal ban on aggression, Article 2, section 4 of the United Nations Charter -- and send American soldiers to die, at least don't do it for lies.

Why?

Condi has always been a great performer. As a pianist, as an ice skater, as a student, as a provost, as a presidential advisor, she has always been on stage. She adapts her performance to her audience: Josef Korbel and, to some extent, me once upon a time, President Bush now. She can be fierce. Donald Rumsfeld, who waged war in Iraq without a plan for the occupation, lost control to Condi and the National Security Council. But tragically, she is also a person without a core, who loses herself in her performance. National security was her responsibility. She failed in that responsibility because she was too busy perfecting her performance as a Bush team player when the Bush team, obsessed with wild fantasies of global domination, had lost touch with reality.

In contrast, Richard Clarke was not concerned about applause. He saw the threat of al-Qaida. He fought in the Bush bureaucracy to get them to pay attention. As early as the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, he had warned of the threat of planes crashed by terrorists into targets. In frustration at the Bush administration, he resigned his position of over 25 years. He apologized to the American people for 9/11.

As Sen. Kerrey's questions indicated, Condi refuses to admit any mistakes. She goes on, skating over and over again, blaming turf wars between the CIA and FBI. The Bush administration, she suggests, had no responsibility for dropping the ball on al-Qaida.

Clarke unites what Max Weber called an ethic of responsibility and a visionary ethic of intention. He wanted to fight terror and maintain American liberties.

Condi justified the so-called PATRIOT Act by saying it was necessary to get the FBI and CIA to cooperate. She failed to mention the reactionary nostrums that fill over 300 pages of the act: for instance, spying on books people read at libraries or locking up American citizens without a right to counsel as supposed "enemy combatants" or throwing out the rule of law at Guantánamo.

In a brief statement, Kerrey insisted that the occupation forces could not deal with the current uprising in Iraq with military force. He spoke of it as a "civil war." (In fact, the Bush occupation has united Sunnis and Shiites in a national insurrection against it.) Condi smiled, and was silent.

Condi's speaking was rapid and articulate. She is by far the best public face for the Bush administration. She is not the cantankerous Rumsfeld, or Bush who cannot speak cogently about his own administration's record without a minder, or Cheney the extreme rightwing oilman, or Wolfowitz, the neo-conservative ideologue.

But the fact is inescapable: Condi did not pay attention to al-Qaida before or after 9/11. The Bush administration has stonewalled the 9/11 hearings, postponing them for over two years, because they had a terrible secret to hide.

Even now, the Bush administration is striving to keep Presidential Daily Briefings classified. When Condi and committee members differ sharply over their meaning -- when Condi says the Aug. 6 briefing that cited the threat Osama posed to the United States was merely "historical" and required no "action," and the committee asks in the name of American democracy that the public see the document, she will not declassify it. Perhaps Democratic pressure will force Bush to relent.

It was Condi who led the unheard-of Bush administration attack on Richard Clarke, charging (without addressing his major claims) that this Republican civil servant for four administrations, whom she left in charge of the White House Situation Room on 9/11, was somehow distorting the Bush record. Yet she did not dare -- it would have been too obviously untruthful -- to attack him before the committee. Perhaps Condi's performance, which ran on all the major channels, can take voters' eyes off the fact that due to the invasion of Iraq, al-Qaida has only grown stronger in the past three years. Perhaps Condi can turn our eyes from the fact that the president asked American soldiers to die for lies about weapons of mass destruction and Saddam's supposed links to bin Laden. Perhaps Condi can claim that all is well in Iraq while Shiites and Sunnis unite to fight the American occupation and kill American soldiers. The fairy tale continues. The performer skates on.

In Haiti, the Bush administration recently allowed the elected President, Aristide, to be removed by a coup. American Embassy personnel and marines went to Aristide's home in the middle of night, and forced him to leave for an unidentified destination, which turned out to be the Central African Republic. Through their organization CARICOM, the Caribbean nations have condemned this coup. Jamaica has permitted Aristide to come back to the Caribbean. Prime Minister Patterson has rejected American demands, conveyed by Condoleezza Rice, to force Aristide to leave for Africa.

There are some things that Patterson, like Clarke, will not do. He is willing to pay the price. Sadly, the same thing cannot be said about Condoleezza Rice. She is lost in her performance.

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