For those whose loved ones were crushed, or incinerated, or vaporized on a sun-kissed morning six years ago, no Sept. 11 ever will dawn without pain and remembrance. Those are appropriate anniversary reactions for the rest of us as well. Yet they are not enough.
With each new video rant, Osama bin Laden sweetens his offer: He will guide us to peace, and sympathize with our mortgage woes, if only we see the truth through his dark and languid eyes. For bin Laden, Sept. 11 was but one more prelude — after almost two decades of essentially unanswered preludes — to his full-bore campaign against the West.
Six years later, we can wonder whether our resolve to defeat that campaign has weakened, splintered. Bin Laden? No question there. He’s just as resolved as he was in 2001.
So: Are we thwarting him? Or will he disgrace us?
Washington Post-ABC News poll results released Monday portray an America balancing confidence and caution: Sixty percent of respondents say this country is safer now than it was before Sept. 11, and about half say the U.S. government can prevent further terrorist attacks here. More than half say that, overall, the campaign against terrorism is going well. Yet two-thirds of respondents say they worry about major attacks against America in the future.
The former chairman and vice chairman of the 9/11 Commission sound less convinced of that generally upbeat public assessment. Writing in Sunday’s Post, Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton ask “Are we safer today?” and then volunteer that this nation “still lack[s] a sense of urgency in the face of grave danger. … The answer stems from a mixed record of reform, a lack of focus and a resilient foe.”
Kean and Hamilton offer specific and diverse judgments on the performance of individual intelligence agencies and federal bureaucracies. The Bush administration hasn’t done enough to win the struggle of ideas with Islamic extremism; we have not been attacked again, and our defenses are better.
There isn’t one word of solace from Kean and Hamilton for anyone who, six years after Sept. 11, sees a diminishing threat. Quite the opposite. “The 9/11 Commission urged a ‘maximum effort’ to prevent the nightmare scenario: a nuclear weapon in the hands of terrorists. The recent National Intelligence Estimate says that Al Qaeda will continue to try to acquire weapons of mass destruction and that it would not hesitate to use them. But our response to the threat of nuclear terrorism has been lip service and little action.”
That is a chilling assessment from two smart men who deserve this country’s full attention. The implications of their warning run the gamut, from the prosecution of our 6-year-old war against terror groups to our determination that rogue regimes such as Iran’s not be allowed to develop nuclear weaponry.
So while it is important on Sept. 11, 2007, to look back, it is just as crucial to look ahead. The report of the 9/11 Commission was, in large measure, an indictment of chronic U.S. inaction against global terror. Never again can this country close its eyes and hope for the best.
