You Had Eight Years, Rudy

“America’s Mayor” really does make this job too easy at times (re: his blaming of Bill Clinton here for “not responding forcefully enough” to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and later terrorist attacks).

Let’s start with the information from this link, which notes that, after the 1993 attack, Rudy decided to put the Emergency Command Center in Building 7 (the one that pancaked even though it wasn’t hit by anything – hmmm…) because he considered it too much to travel to a more secure location in Brooklyn. Also noted is the fact that he didn’t put into place a clear chain of command for emergency workers after 1993, and did not implement a single measure recommended by the fire department, which identified crucial emergency response failures.

Also, this comprehensive post by davefromqueens via The Daily Kos documents these failures and many others by Giuliani prior to 9/11 and subsequent to that awful day (as well as the CIA’s rueful admission that it had trained the 1993 WTC bombers here – hat tip to the blogger My Three Cents for these two links).

And what of the response of Bill Clinton? Well, as noted here…

In all, ten militant Islamist conspirators – including Ramzi Yousef (the person chiefly responsible for the attack) – were convicted for their part in the bombing and were given prison sentences of a maximum of 240 years each.

I realize Clinton doesn’t deserve credit exclusively for that, but this did take place under his watch (and we’re all still waiting for additional convictions for the 9/11 attacks besides the one against Mounir el Motassadeq noted here).

Also, cruise missile attacks were ordered by Clinton at terrorist bases in the Sudan and Afghanistan in response to the U.S. Embassy bombings in 1998. Of the 21 terrorists convicted in the bombings, two were killed, four are serving life without parole, and two are being held at Guantanamo; the rest are being held in the U.K. or are still at large.

In addition, Clinton provided this explanation for the missile attacks in this interview in which he clashed with Fox’s Chris Wallace: “The entire military was against sending special forces into Afghanistan and refueling by helicopter and no one thought we could do it otherwise…We could not get the CIA and the FBI to certify that Al Qaeda was responsible while I was President.” And the investigation into the October 2000 bombing of the U.S.S. Cole could not be completed before the end of Clinton’s term in office.

So to sum up, Rudy, your nonsensical blame game may play with a gaggle of right-wing zombies at Regent University, Pat Robertson’s conservative “Christian” college, but it deflates pretty quickly when held up to scrutiny in blue state territory (though I admit that Rockville, MD is approximately on the geographic and ideological border line).