Replies to post #61179 on Simply Politics & News (GOV)

[IxCimi]

False. You are totally incorrect.

Clinton: My Republican Secretary of Defense [and] Richard Clarke and all the intelligence people said that I ordered a vigorous attempt to get bin Laden and came closer, apparently, than anybody has since.

Correct. Who came closer is, as we've said, a matter we can't resolve. But it is certainly true that Clinton's Republican Secretary of Defense, William Cohen, described Clinton as vigorously trying to get bin Laden. Cohen told the 9/11 Commission that "President Clinton and his entire national security team devoted an extraordinary amount of time and effort to coping with the threat."

Clarke also described Clinton's anti-terrorist actions as strong, as we've already noted.

Measures taken by the Clinton administration to thwart international terrorism and bin Laden's network were historic, unprecedented and, sadly, not followed up on. Consider the steps offered by Clinton's 1996 omnibus anti-terror legislation, the pricetag for which stood at $1.097 billion. The following is a partial list of the initiatives offered by the Clinton anti-terrorism bill:

Screen Checked Baggage: $91.1 million
Screen Carry-On Baggage: $37.8 million
Passenger Profiling: $10 million
Screener Training: $5.3 million
Screen Passengers (portals) and Document Scanners: $1 million
Deploying Existing Technology to Inspect International Air Cargo: $31.4
million
Provide Additional Air/Counterterrorism Security: $26.6 million
Explosives Detection Training: $1.8 million
Augment FAA Security Research: $20 million
Customs Service: Explosives and Radiation Detection Equipment at Ports: $2.2 million
Anti-Terrorism Assistance to Foreign Governments: $2 million
Capacity to Collect and Assemble Explosives Data: $2.1 million
Improve Domestic Intelligence: $38.9 million
Critical Incident Response Teams for Post-Blast Deployment: $7.2 million
Additional Security for Federal Facilities: $6.7 million
Firefighter/Emergency Services Financial Assistance: $2.7 million
Public Building and Museum Security: $7.3 million
Improve Technology to Prevent Nuclear Smuggling: $8 million
Critical Incident Response Facility: $2 million
Counter-Terrorism Fund: $35 million
Explosives Intelligence and Support Systems: $14.2 million
Office of Emergency Preparedness: $5.8 million

[IxCimi]

The day after Clinton's interview on Fox, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in a meeting with writers and editors at The New York Post , said the idea that the Bush Administration took no action on terrorism pre-9/11 was "flatly false," calling the Bush efforts "at least as aggressive" as what Clinton had done, and denied Clinton's claim that the Bush team had been left a plan by the previous Administration.

Rice: We were not left a comprehensive strategy to fight al Qaeda.

False: Rice's statement is not supported by the 9/11 Report, which describes the plans Clarke drew up and says they were conveyed to Bush's aides, as we noted earlier. The 9/11 Report says that as the Clinton Administration drew to a close in December 2000, Clarke and his staff developed a policy paper on eliminating the al Qaeda threat, "the first such comprehensive effort" since a 1998 plan known as Delenda (p. 197). The Report also says (p. 201): "After Rice requested that all senior staff identify desirable major policy reviews or initiatives, Clarke submitted an elaborate memorandum on January 25, 2001. He attached to it his 1998 Delenda Plan and the December 2000 strategy paper."

[AKvetch]

War isn't a video game.

Don't be so sure...........


Uncle Sam Wants Video Gamers
Playing Games Could Help Build Careers In The U.S. Military

ORLANDO, Feb. 8, 2005
--------------------------------------------------------------
"You can create your own world, you can lay down units anywhere you want, set any type of scenario."

Doug Whatley, military game developer
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(CBS) Turns out, you parents of video-gamers have it all wrong.

Playing these games doesn't waste time, it builds careers in the U.S. military.

Which puts a "dude" side-by-side with Larry McCracken, a captain in the U.S. Navy - unlikely allies meeting at a video game conference in Orlando.

McCracken says the Navy came on board after the Army created a game called "America's Army."

As CBS News Correspondent Mark Strassmann reports, it became a runaway hit, first for recruiting and then for training.

In short, video games made better soldiers and sailors faster, safer and cheaper.

"The realism you get is the ability to keep somebody engaged and play a game for three or four hours as opposed to in a classroom, where after 15 minutes they're bored," says McCracken.

And, one thing young recruits in today's military have in common is that they've all played video games. They all talk the jargon.

"They know all the words," says gaming expert John Beck. "They can talk, 'Oh, this is like that game, and when they talk about it everybody knows, this is like Halo 2."

And talk about realistic.

One game teaches how to survive ambushes on what looks like a Baghdad street.

For some game-developers, the new target-market is the Pentagon and its war games.

And for military game developers like Doug Whatley, it means creating their own world.

"You can create your own world, you can lay down units anywhere you want, set any type of scenario," says Whatley.

For two worlds that just five years ago seldom crossed, there's a new, shared reality called simulation.

"It's been a huge shift," says McCracken. "I'm a convert. I just wish I knew how to play this game much better."

So fire away. America's national defense just may depend on it.

© MMV, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/02/08/eveningnews/main672455.shtml