Media overlook crucial questions raised by Suskind's new book
from MediaMatters
Summary: Investigative reporter Ron Suskind's new book, The One Percent Doctrine, includes numerous significant revelations regarding the White House's handling of the terrorism threat, but news outlets have largely ignored the compelling and relevant questions raised by Suskind's disclosures.
In his new book, The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside America's Pursuit of Its Enemies Since 9/11 (Simon & Schuster, June 2006), investigative reporter Ron Suskind provides an in-depth look at the Bush administration's anti-terrorism efforts before and in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, attacks. Suskind extensively documents the decision-making that occurred at the top levels of government and profiles those in the intelligence community assigned to carry out these orders. The book includes numerous significant revelations regarding the White House's handling of the terrorism threat. But in the months since its publication, news outlets have largely ignored the compelling and relevant questions raised by Suskind's disclosures.
Indeed, while Suskind conducted numerous television interviews in the week following the book's release, further exploration of his reporting has since been largely absent from cable and network news programming. Similarly, the print media's discussion of The One Percent Doctrine was almost entirely confined to a number of book reviews in late June. But these print outlets have failed to delve further into the issues raised by the book in the months since.
In the absence of such reports, Media Matters for America has documented the major disclosures included in Suskind's book and highlighted the important questions they provoke:
* Suskind reported that Vice President Dick Cheney, in a November 2001 meeting with CIA officials, articulated a "different way" to think about "low probability, high impact" events. "If there's a one percent chance" that Al Qaeda could come into possession of WMD, "we need to treat it as a certainty," Cheney said, adding, "It's not about our analysis, or finding a preponderance of evidence. It's about our response." This approach -- the "Cheney Doctrine," as Suskind called it -- represented "a standard of action that would frame events and responses from the administration for years to come." (Page 62) Indeed, Suskind detailed throughout the book how this way of thinking informed the White House's decisions regarding the war in Iraq, the handling of domestic threats, and the wider execution of the war against terrorism.
Is it the policy of the United States to treat "low-probability, high-impact" threats to the United States as if they were a certainty? Is such a policy informing the White House's decision-making with regard to Iran?
* In recent years, President Bush and various Republican leaders have suggested that the absence of another terrorist attack on American soil indicates that the White House's anti-terrorism policies have been effective. But Suskind noted how the Madrid train bombing in March 2004 "was further affirmation of what CIA analysts had first begun to see in sigint [signals intelligence] and limited humint [human intelligence] as far back as the spring of 2002: a possible strategic shift by al Qaeda away from further attacks on the U.S. mainland." (Pages 303-304)
Suskind cited the "growing evidence [in the intelligence community] that al Qaeda might not have been trying to attack the United States in the three years since its singular triumph of 9/11." Earlier evidence included the revelation in the spring of 2003 that Al Qaeda lieutenant Ayman al-Zawahiri had months earlier called off a fully-operational plot to attack the New York City subway system with hydrogen cyanide. According to Suskind, an Al Qaeda informant had told U.S. authorities that, prior to the cancellation of the plot, the "cell members had traveled to New York City through North Africa in the fall [of 2002] and had thoroughly cased the locations for the attacks." (Page 218)
From the book:
The deeply classified debate over why Zawahiri had called off chemical attacks, meanwhile, shed its old self-congratulatory thesis that this might be due to the pressure the United States was putting on al Qaeda's structure. That line of analysis gave way to growing evidence that al Qaeda might not have been trying to attack the United States in the three years since its singular triumph of 9/11.
"What we understood inside CIA is that al Qaeda just doesn't act out of bloodlust, or pathological rage. Though their tactics are horrific, they're not homicidal maniacs. They do what they do to carry forward specific strategic goals," said a senior CIA official involved in highest-level debates over bin Laden and Zawahiri during this period. "Clearly, they had the capability to attack us in about a hundred different ways. They didn't. The question was, why?"
(There's more.)
Summary: Investigative reporter Ron Suskind's new book, The One Percent Doctrine, includes numerous significant revelations regarding the White House's handling of the terrorism threat, but news outlets have largely ignored the compelling and relevant questions raised by Suskind's disclosures.
In his new book, The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside America's Pursuit of Its Enemies Since 9/11 (Simon & Schuster, June 2006), investigative reporter Ron Suskind provides an in-depth look at the Bush administration's anti-terrorism efforts before and in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, attacks. Suskind extensively documents the decision-making that occurred at the top levels of government and profiles those in the intelligence community assigned to carry out these orders. The book includes numerous significant revelations regarding the White House's handling of the terrorism threat. But in the months since its publication, news outlets have largely ignored the compelling and relevant questions raised by Suskind's disclosures.
Indeed, while Suskind conducted numerous television interviews in the week following the book's release, further exploration of his reporting has since been largely absent from cable and network news programming. Similarly, the print media's discussion of The One Percent Doctrine was almost entirely confined to a number of book reviews in late June. But these print outlets have failed to delve further into the issues raised by the book in the months since.
In the absence of such reports, Media Matters for America has documented the major disclosures included in Suskind's book and highlighted the important questions they provoke:
* Suskind reported that Vice President Dick Cheney, in a November 2001 meeting with CIA officials, articulated a "different way" to think about "low probability, high impact" events. "If there's a one percent chance" that Al Qaeda could come into possession of WMD, "we need to treat it as a certainty," Cheney said, adding, "It's not about our analysis, or finding a preponderance of evidence. It's about our response." This approach -- the "Cheney Doctrine," as Suskind called it -- represented "a standard of action that would frame events and responses from the administration for years to come." (Page 62) Indeed, Suskind detailed throughout the book how this way of thinking informed the White House's decisions regarding the war in Iraq, the handling of domestic threats, and the wider execution of the war against terrorism.
Is it the policy of the United States to treat "low-probability, high-impact" threats to the United States as if they were a certainty? Is such a policy informing the White House's decision-making with regard to Iran?
* In recent years, President Bush and various Republican leaders have suggested that the absence of another terrorist attack on American soil indicates that the White House's anti-terrorism policies have been effective. But Suskind noted how the Madrid train bombing in March 2004 "was further affirmation of what CIA analysts had first begun to see in sigint [signals intelligence] and limited humint [human intelligence] as far back as the spring of 2002: a possible strategic shift by al Qaeda away from further attacks on the U.S. mainland." (Pages 303-304)
Suskind cited the "growing evidence [in the intelligence community] that al Qaeda might not have been trying to attack the United States in the three years since its singular triumph of 9/11." Earlier evidence included the revelation in the spring of 2003 that Al Qaeda lieutenant Ayman al-Zawahiri had months earlier called off a fully-operational plot to attack the New York City subway system with hydrogen cyanide. According to Suskind, an Al Qaeda informant had told U.S. authorities that, prior to the cancellation of the plot, the "cell members had traveled to New York City through North Africa in the fall [of 2002] and had thoroughly cased the locations for the attacks." (Page 218)
From the book:
The deeply classified debate over why Zawahiri had called off chemical attacks, meanwhile, shed its old self-congratulatory thesis that this might be due to the pressure the United States was putting on al Qaeda's structure. That line of analysis gave way to growing evidence that al Qaeda might not have been trying to attack the United States in the three years since its singular triumph of 9/11.
"What we understood inside CIA is that al Qaeda just doesn't act out of bloodlust, or pathological rage. Though their tactics are horrific, they're not homicidal maniacs. They do what they do to carry forward specific strategic goals," said a senior CIA official involved in highest-level debates over bin Laden and Zawahiri during this period. "Clearly, they had the capability to attack us in about a hundred different ways. They didn't. The question was, why?"
(There's more.)
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