9\/11 terror caught Bush, U.S. govt by surprise<\/p>\n
Sayidiman Suryohadiprojo, Former Governor, National Resilience Institute,
\n(Lemhanas), Jakarta<\/p>\n
The American people are busy investigating whether President
\nGeorge W. Bush and his government did what they should have done
\nwhen the Sept. 11, 2001 attack took place.<\/p>\n
An independent commission was formed to preside over the
\ninvestigation. Many people were interviewed, an important figure
\namong them was Condoleezza Rice, the U.S. National Security
\nAdviser. Rice emphasized that President Bush had put in the
\nmaximum effort, considering the limited information about the
\ncoming al-Qaeda attack. But many other people were of different
\nopinions. They stressed that security agencies, like the CIA and
\nthe FBI, had warned the president of a possible al-Qaeda attack
\ninside the U.S. They demanded that the White House declassify a
\nreport delivered to the president on Aug. 6, 2001, to reveal the
\ntruth.<\/p>\n
This situation reminded us of the Japanese attack on Pearl
\nHarbor on Dec. 8, 1941. Like the Sept. 11 attack, the attack on
\nPearl Harbor was a total surprise for America. The U.S. lost many
\nships and people, although the Japanese could not achieve their
\nmain objective, namely the annihilation of U.S. aircraft
\ncarriers.<\/p>\n
The attack on Pearl Harbor signaled the entry of the U.S. into
\nWorld War II. The total surprise achieved by the Japanese was a
\nterrible blow to the U.S., not only because of the heavy material
\nand human losses, but much more so because American national
\npride was severely hurt. Almost nobody in America had ever
\nthought that an outside power could attack a U.S. naval base, let
\nalone Pearl Harbor as one of the strongest U.S. naval bases
\nlocated in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.<\/p>\n
However, in reality it was the Japanese who made the worst
\nmistake. Because of the attack, the American people, who before
\nthat were very strongly against entering the war, were now
\nsuddenly aroused to fight and to revenge the treacherous misdeed
\n-- an attack not preceded by a proclamation of war. The U.S.
\nimmediately entered the war with strong spirits and motivation,
\nand joined Britain and other nations to fight Germany, Italy and
\nJapan.<\/p>\n
And that was exactly what President Franklin D. Roosevelt had
\nwanted for a long time. Since Germany defeated and occupied all
\nWest European countries except Britain, Roosevelt persuaded his
\npeople to enter the war on the side of the British against Nazi
\nGermany and Fascist Italy. He made all efforts to convince his
\npeople that Germany would not halt its expansion if it could
\ndefeat Britain; and would definitely continue to attack America.<\/p>\n
It was therefore much better for American security if it could
\nfight Germany together with Britain, rather than later facing the
\nenemy alone. But the American people, feeling safe and secure in
\ntheir isolated bastion in the Western Hemisphere, rejected every
\nmove to bring them into the war. The maximum that Roosevelt could
\nachieve was to support Britain with war material.<\/p>\n
The sudden change of American sentiment was definitely in
\nRoosevelt's favor. His government could now easily mobilize all
\nAmerican resources to fight an all-out war against the Axis
\nPowers and Japan.<\/p>\n
This sudden and dramatic change triggered speculations and
\nsuspicions among people who had knowledge of intelligence, that
\nRoosevelt \"engineered\" the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. These
\npeople knew that the U.S. intelligence, in particular its Code
\nOffice, had achieved a very important success, namely its experts
\nhad broken the secrecy of the Japanese communication code.
\nBecause of this fact, which the Japanese did not realize, the
\nAmericans were able to read every Japanese message transferred
\nthrough radio communication.<\/p>\n
No surprises in diplomatic and military developments were
\npossible for the American leadership, which could read every
\nJapanese dispatch. They therefore thought that it was also
\nimpossible for the Japanese to hide their intentions to attack
\nPearl Harbor. And it was a fact that just before the attack took
\nplace a report from the Code Office was delivered to the White
\nHouse.<\/p>\n
But no warnings were sent by the American leadership to the
\nresponsible commanders in the Pacific area. People were,
\ntherefore, suspicious that President Roosevelt did not react to
\nthe reports in order to enable Japan to make a surprise attack.
\nHe could easily guess that a severe blow to American sentiment
\nwould push the people to radically change their antiwar attitude
\ninto a spirit of revenge and a readiness to join the war. And
\nthat was exactly what happened.<\/p>\n
The situation around the Sept. 11 attack shows many
\nsimilarities with that of Pearl Harbor. Rice said in her opening
\nstatement before the Sept. 11 commission that the American people
\nwere, before Sept. 11, not in a \"mood of war\".<\/p>\n
That was similar to the situation before the Pearl Harbor
\nattack. And everybody knew that President George W. Bush and the
\nneo-conservative group around him were very eager and ambitious
\nto attack Iraq for several reasons. That again is similar to
\nPresident Roosevelt's strong intentions to join the fight
\nalongside Britain as soon as possible.<\/p>\n
After Sept. 11, the mood of the American people became very
\npatriotic and nationalistic. Support of the Bush government to
\nfight terrorism all-out was very strong. That, again, looks very
\nsimilar to the situation after Dec. 8, 1941.<\/p>\n
It is therefore reasonable for some people to suspect that
\nPresident Bush and his neo-conservative assistants had
\nintentionally not reacted proportionally to warning reports of a
\nterrorist attack, as such developments would provide them with a
\nsituation favorable for achieving their political objectives.<\/p>\n
But there the similarities seem to end. Because there is no
\nsimilarity between the American victory of the Second World War
\nand the negative developments of the war in Iraq and the failure
\nto capture al-Qaeda and its terrorist gang until today.<\/p>\n
President Roosevelt's management of the situation resulted in
\nAmerica's overall supremacy coupled with a strong pro-American
\nattitude in many parts of the world, not only among nations
\nallied by the U.S., but also among many people in the defeated
\nnations of Germany, Italy and Japan. And that in spite of the
\ninhuman atomic bombings.<\/p>\n
Today it is far from clear that President Bush can pacify
\nIraq, let alone change it into a democracy, which was one of
\nBush's objectives for attacking Iraq. It is also still far from
\nsure when Osama bin Laden can be captured and the al-Qaeda
\nterrorist group can be totally annihilated. Much more humiliating
\nfor America is the spread of anti-Americanism all over the world
\nbecause of President Bush's policies. Not only Palestinians,
\nIraqis or Iranians are now strongly anti-America, but even people
\nin Spain, Japan and Germany who were traditionally pro-America.
\n-----<\/p>",
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