9/11 terror caught Bush, U.S. govt by surprise

Sayidiman Suryohadiprojo, Former Governor, National Resilience Institute, (Lemhanas), Jakarta

The American people are busy investigating whether President George W. Bush and his government did what they should have done when the Sept. 11, 2001 attack took place.

An independent commission was formed to preside over the investigation. Many people were interviewed, an important figure among them was Condoleezza Rice, the U.S. National Security Adviser. Rice emphasized that President Bush had put in the maximum effort, considering the limited information about the coming al-Qaeda attack. But many other people were of different opinions. They stressed that security agencies, like the CIA and the FBI, had warned the president of a possible al-Qaeda attack inside the U.S. They demanded that the White House declassify a report delivered to the president on Aug. 6, 2001, to reveal the truth.

This situation reminded us of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 8, 1941. Like the Sept. 11 attack, the attack on Pearl Harbor was a total surprise for America. The U.S. lost many ships and people, although the Japanese could not achieve their main objective, namely the annihilation of U.S. aircraft carriers.

The attack on Pearl Harbor signaled the entry of the U.S. into World War II. The total surprise achieved by the Japanese was a terrible blow to the U.S., not only because of the heavy material and human losses, but much more so because American national pride was severely hurt. Almost nobody in America had ever thought that an outside power could attack a U.S. naval base, let alone Pearl Harbor as one of the strongest U.S. naval bases located in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

However, in reality it was the Japanese who made the worst mistake. Because of the attack, the American people, who before that were very strongly against entering the war, were now suddenly aroused to fight and to revenge the treacherous misdeed -- an attack not preceded by a proclamation of war. The U.S. immediately entered the war with strong spirits and motivation, and joined Britain and other nations to fight Germany, Italy and Japan.

And that was exactly what President Franklin D. Roosevelt had wanted for a long time. Since Germany defeated and occupied all West European countries except Britain, Roosevelt persuaded his people to enter the war on the side of the British against Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. He made all efforts to convince his people that Germany would not halt its expansion if it could defeat Britain; and would definitely continue to attack America.

It was therefore much better for American security if it could fight Germany together with Britain, rather than later facing the enemy alone. But the American people, feeling safe and secure in their isolated bastion in the Western Hemisphere, rejected every move to bring them into the war. The maximum that Roosevelt could achieve was to support Britain with war material.

The sudden change of American sentiment was definitely in Roosevelt's favor. His government could now easily mobilize all American resources to fight an all-out war against the Axis Powers and Japan.

This sudden and dramatic change triggered speculations and suspicions among people who had knowledge of intelligence, that Roosevelt "engineered" the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. These people knew that the U.S. intelligence, in particular its Code Office, had achieved a very important success, namely its experts had broken the secrecy of the Japanese communication code. Because of this fact, which the Japanese did not realize, the Americans were able to read every Japanese message transferred through radio communication.

No surprises in diplomatic and military developments were possible for the American leadership, which could read every Japanese dispatch. They therefore thought that it was also impossible for the Japanese to hide their intentions to attack Pearl Harbor. And it was a fact that just before the attack took place a report from the Code Office was delivered to the White House.

But no warnings were sent by the American leadership to the responsible commanders in the Pacific area. People were, therefore, suspicious that President Roosevelt did not react to the reports in order to enable Japan to make a surprise attack. He could easily guess that a severe blow to American sentiment would push the people to radically change their antiwar attitude into a spirit of revenge and a readiness to join the war. And that was exactly what happened.

The situation around the Sept. 11 attack shows many similarities with that of Pearl Harbor. Rice said in her opening statement before the Sept. 11 commission that the American people were, before Sept. 11, not in a "mood of war".

That was similar to the situation before the Pearl Harbor attack. And everybody knew that President George W. Bush and the neo-conservative group around him were very eager and ambitious to attack Iraq for several reasons. That again is similar to President Roosevelt's strong intentions to join the fight alongside Britain as soon as possible.

After Sept. 11, the mood of the American people became very patriotic and nationalistic. Support of the Bush government to fight terrorism all-out was very strong. That, again, looks very similar to the situation after Dec. 8, 1941.

It is therefore reasonable for some people to suspect that President Bush and his neo-conservative assistants had intentionally not reacted proportionally to warning reports of a terrorist attack, as such developments would provide them with a situation favorable for achieving their political objectives.

But there the similarities seem to end. Because there is no similarity between the American victory of the Second World War and the negative developments of the war in Iraq and the failure to capture al-Qaeda and its terrorist gang until today.

President Roosevelt's management of the situation resulted in America's overall supremacy coupled with a strong pro-American attitude in many parts of the world, not only among nations allied by the U.S., but also among many people in the defeated nations of Germany, Italy and Japan. And that in spite of the inhuman atomic bombings.

Today it is far from clear that President Bush can pacify Iraq, let alone change it into a democracy, which was one of Bush's objectives for attacking Iraq. It is also still far from sure when Osama bin Laden can be captured and the al-Qaeda terrorist group can be totally annihilated. Much more humiliating for America is the spread of anti-Americanism all over the world because of President Bush's policies. Not only Palestinians, Iraqis or Iranians are now strongly anti-America, but even people in Spain, Japan and Germany who were traditionally pro-America. -----