Would 9/11 have occurred if Gore was president...

[neoteric lefty]

Let's put aside the theories that Bush MIHOP or LIHOP (with knowledge) when concerning 9/11. Let's take it as Bush says, it was an intelligence failure that lead to 9/11. Would it still have happened if Gore were president. If those are the circumstances then I would say there is a good chance that it wouldn't have happened. Here why:

-If Gore were president then this whole transition period taken by Bush and his administration (which was up wards of 6 months) would be shortened to a few weeks for Gore. I am sure Gore would have new people in his cabinet and senior staffers but the transition would be much smoother, no doubt.

-Gore would have not stopped the investigation in Yemen of the USS Cole bombing like G.W. Bush did. Chances are, he would have stepped it up. Knowing that Yemen was a hotbed for Al Queada, there seems to be pretty good chances that we would have gotten good intelligence, maybe even arrested members, that may have been able to give evidence of upcoming attacks.

-Gore would have listened to key counter-terrorism advisers already in place much more than Bush did. It is quite clear that Bush, Rice and others seemed skeptical (to say the least) about anyone from the Clinton administration. They did not trust these people. Just look at Richard Clarke. It seems to me that Gore's Natl Security team would be much closer to these advisers.


Maybe Gore couldn't have stopped 9/11. We don't know. But I am sure that he would have been much better prepared that Bush was during his first 7 months in office.