Ah, yes, the little wrinkle of there being no warning about a domestic attack. Ashcroft's Justice Department did have three FBI field offices—Minneapolis, Phoenix, and New York—all pursuing domestic terror investigations with varying degrees of connectedness to the 9/11 plot in the weeks before the attack. This, alone, seems to poke a rather large hole in the no-warning myth.
There were, in fact, many pre-9/11 warnings. One involves the small matter of Ashcroft suddenly opting to ditch domestic commercial aircraft. As CBS News reported on July 26, 2001:
In response to inquiries from CBS News over why Ashcroft was traveling exclusively by leased jet aircraft instead of commercial airlines, the Justice Department cited what it called a "threat assessment" by the FBI, and said Ashcroft has been advised to travel only by private jet for the remainder of his term.
"There was a threat assessment and there are guidelines. He is acting under the guidelines," an FBI spokesman said. Neither the FBI nor the Justice Department, however, would identify what the threat was, when it was detected or who made it.
Give the same set of circumstantial facts to any U.S. Attorney looking for fore-knowledge of corporate malfeasance and that lawyer would jump into an investigation to ferret out the truth.
And unease over further investigation into the pre-9/11 timeline apparently has troubled Ashcroft for some time. Certainly his new book has doubled back to blast the 9/11 Commission over just these very points and Ashcroft continues to press the notion that the government pre-9/11 had no hope of stopping terrorists and that only "toughness" can succeed.
A book promo talk last week with right-wing bloggers is quite illuminating on that front. Among friends Ashcroft evidently felt comfortable enough to uncork a few doozies, including suggesting that anyone worrying about how America treats its prisoners should consider the alternative—killing prisoners outright. And when asked about criticisms of the PATRIOT Act, clearly what Ashcroft regards as his lasting legacy, the former Senator from the Show-Me State said, "Name one person who's been victimized by the PATRIOT Act."
Alright, but it will take some setup:
When you have a loose spark plug wire and the auto shop replaces the entire electrical system instead, you have a problem, perhaps a fraud. The real issue is missed and many, many expensive new fixes are attempted.
It is becoming very clear that the 9/11 attacks were the result of a bad spark plug wire. The overall system basically worked. A threat was detected and that information was conveyed to the nation's leaders in a timely fashion. They opted to ignore it. That was the breakdown: not the laws, but the leaders.
The PATRIOT Act and the across-the-board ramping up of government surveillance represent the unneeded new electrical system. A colossal waste of time and resources that does not fix the fundamental problem of a backward-looking and, frankly, Missouri-mule-stubborn ruling class that insists on seeing the world as it would like it to be rather than how it actually exists.
Who has been victimized by the PATRIOT Act? Certainly every American who expects their government to act responsibly and accept blame when things go wrong.
John Ashcroft now stands as the face of this peculiar mix of arrogance and cowardice. His criticism of the 9/11 Commission as a show trial projects his greatest fear: To swear before his God to tell the truth, with the tangible threat of going to prison to back that up.
Anything less, it seems, will not recover reality.
Editor's Note: We invite comments and request that they be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of Reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment for any reason at any time.