The Huffington Post has a great excerpt from an upcoming Al Gore interview with GQ. Reproduced below is Gore’s response to the question of the president’s responsibility for 9/11. It’s virtually a perfect answer and response from the man who, had he been president, probably would have kept 9/11 from happening at all:

GQ: Do you feel that we would be safer today if you had been president on that day?

AG: Well, no one can say that the 9-11 attack wouldn’t have occurred whoever was president.

GQ: Really? How about all the warnings?

AG: That’s a separate question. And it’s almost too easy to say, “I would have heeded the warnings.” In fact, I think I would have, I know I would have. We had several instances when the CIA’s alarm bells went off, and what we did when that happened was, we had emergency meetings and called everybody together and made sure that all systems were go and every agency was hitting on all cylinders, and we made them bring more information, and go into the second and third and fourth level of detail. And made suggestions on how we could respond in a more coordinated, more effective way.

It is inconceivable to me that Bush would read a warning as stark and as clear [voice angry now] as the one he received on August 6th of 2001, and, according to some of the new histories, he turned to the briefer and said, “Well, you’ve covered your ass.” And never called a follow up meeting. Never made an inquiry. Never asked a single question. To this day, I don’t understand it.

And, I think it’s fair to say that he personally does in fact bear a measure of blame for not doing his job at a time when we really needed him to do his job. And now the Woodward book has this episode that has been confirmed by the record that George Tenet, who was much abused by this administration, went over to the White House for the purpose of calling an emergency meeting and warning as clearly as possible about the extremely dangerous situation with Osama bin Laden, and was brushed off!

And I don’t know why–honestly–I mean, I understand how horrible this Congressman Foley situation with the instant messaging is, okay? I understand that. But, why didn’t these kinds of things produce a similar outrage? And you know, I’m even reluctant to talk about it in these terms because it’s so easy for people to hear this or read this as sort of cheap political game-playing. I understand how it could sound that way.

… But dammit, whatever happened to the concept of accountability for catastrophic failure? This administration has been by far the most incompetent, inept, and with more moral cowardice, and obsequiousness to their wealthy contributors, and obliviousness to the public interest of any administration in modern history, and probably in the entire history of the country!

Damn straight.

I have posted before on the whole idea that 9/11 was eminently preventable. Here I list the many PDB’s that outlined the al Qaeda threat loud and clear (“Bin Laden planning multiple operations,” “Bin Laden network’s plans advancing,” and “Bin Laden threats are real,” in addition to the infamous “Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States“); I outline some of the various warnings and clues (available in 2004) that came at the White House from all angles (multiple warnings from Clinton administration officials, the FBI, and the CIA, as well as intel that al Qaeda was planning to use airplanes as weapons).

Then I lay out a scenario in which, had Rice been doing her job, had she followed the strategies followed in the Clinton administration, she could have rolled up the 9/11 plot weeks in advance. Simply put: Rice should have been paying attention to the intel coming in from the agencies (that was her actual job, after all), she would have been focusing on any reports about terrorism (because of all those warnings) and she would have noticed the two terror suspects who were arrested and were taking flying lessons; from there, a single call to the FBI to immediately check out flight schools around the country for terror suspects would have netted virtually all the 9/11 participants and would have prevented the attacks with weeks to spare.

This is not rocket science. This is not the result of not having enough appointments passed by Congress. This was something that could have been achieved with a skeleton crew. It is what the National Security Advisor is supposed to do. And the media has given the Bush administration a 100% free pass on this one.

This is likely because in the beginning, no one wanted to challenge the administration’s story that there was no way to see it coming, for fear of appearing unpatriotic–the idea was that we all had to stand together, behind the president, and wave the flag. Since then, the likely reason for reticence is partly that “the time has passed” for such a statement and one would be criticized for not saying so earlier, but even more because anyone in a notable position in the media is fully aware that if they forward the idea today, they will be mercilessly attacked by the partisan attack dogs (closely followed by the media in general), and labeled as a partisan ultra-liberal, a conspiracy theorist, or worse.

But none of that changes the facts. The warnings were clear and in great number. The infrastructure to coordinate the information was available, and had been pointed out to the new administration. The necessary action to stop the terrorists was simple and easily achievable.

There is no good reason why this should be a discussion for future historians only.