I am of the opinion that both administrations played hell controlling the problems of a bureaucratic monstrocity. When you put enough people and departments between the agent on the ground and the padded swivel chair in the office in Washington, this happens. While both adminstrations entertain the public by casting blame on the other, the samo, samo conditions continue. As long as you enjoy the dog and pony show, fine, but I would like to see at least an effort to make some constructive changes for better security. People get the government they deserve, which in this case is a pretty low threshold.
Insight often has reported on Clinton-era officials and Republican defectors who have tied Bush's national-security strategy in knots since the beginning of his presidency [see "Blinded Vigilance," Oct. 15, 2001; "Clinton Undead Haunting Pentagon," June 17, 2002; and "Democrats Subvert War Intelligence," Jan. 6-19]. Indeed, this magazine reported on Sept. 7, 2001, just four days before the terrorist attacks, that Clinton holdovers continued to run the U.S. intelligence community [see "Ground Down CIA Still in the Pit" at Insight online] without needed reforms to deal with post-Cold War threats such as international terrorism [see sidebar, p. 19]. Days after the carnage, even the president's most bellicose critics in Congress, including Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Carl Levin (D-Mich.), were on CNN saying as publicly as they could that they were reconsidering their long-held positions that limited the fight against the terrorist enemy and piously alluding to the need to repeal a post-Watergate executive order banning assassinations abroad.
At that point the president's own defense and security team was still taking shape. His top NSC special assistant for intelligence programs, Mary K. Sturtevant, had been on the job only eight weeks before the 9/11 attacks. For months, Sen. Levin personally had held up the confirmation hearings of Bush's appointees who were to design the U.S. antiterrorism strategy - Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith, Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Programs J.D. Crouch and Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs Peter W. Rodman - refusing for apparently partisan purposes to allow them to take office until late July 2001. While Levin was holding up their appointments, the incoming Pentagon policy team had no legal or political authority to do their vital jobs - a fact that helps explain why it took eight months for the Bush administration to draw up a strategic operational plan to destroy al-Qaeda.
Making matters worse for the Pentagon leadership after 9/11 were the machinations of a network of senior Clinton political appointees who still held sensitive posts, including Peter F. Verga, Clinton's deputy undersecretary of defense for policy integration, which was a major intelligence post. Senior administration sources tell Insight that Verga made himself useful to the Rumsfeld team but beavered to curry favor at the top, in part by "sniping and playing bureaucratic games" to make life difficult for the incoming defense policy team. Even today the divisive Verga holds a senior homeland-security post at the Defense Department.
Insight
They say Bush had 8 months, but I don't think so...here is a list of Bush appointees confirmation dates for the Defense and State Depts...
DEFENSE:
Donald Rumsfeld Secretary of Defense 01/20/2001
Paul Wolfowitz Deputy Secretary 02/28/2001
Dov Zakheim Undersecretary, Comptroller 05/01/2001
Edward Aldridge Undersecretary for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics 05/08/2001
William James Haynes General Counsel 05/17/2001
Victoria Clarke Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs 05/17/2001
Powell A. Moore Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs 05/01/2001
Charles S. Abell Assistant Secretary for Force Management 05/03/2001
David S.C. Chu Undersecretary for Personnel and Readiness 05/26/2001
Douglas J. Feith Undersecretary for Policy 07/12/2001
Jack Dyer Crouch II Assistant Secretary for International Security Policy 08/01/2001
Stephen A. Cambone Principal Deputy Undersecretary for Policy 07/19/2001
James G. Roche Secretary of the Air Force 05/24/2001
Thomas White Secretary of the Army 05/24/2001
Gordon England Secretary of the Navy 05/22/2001
Susan Morrisey LivingstoneUndersecretary of the Navy 07/19/2001
Peter W. Rodman Assistant Secretary for International Security Affairs 07/12/2001
Marvin Sambur Assistant Secretary for Acquisition, Research and Development (Air Force) 11/08/2001
Alberto Jose Mora General Counsel, Navy 07/19/2001
Michael Montelongo Assistant Secretary for Financial Management and Comptroller, Air Force 07/12/2001
Steven John Morello, Sr. General Counsel, Army 07/12/2001
Thomas P. Christie Director, Operational Test and Evaluation 07/12/2001
Dionel M. Aviles Assistant Secretary for Financial Management & Comptroller, Navy 07/12/2001
Michael W. Wynne Deputy Undersecretary for Acquisition and Technology 07/12/2001
Diane K. Morales Deputy Undersecretary for Logistics and Material Readiness 07/12/2001
William A. Navas, Jr. Assistant Secretary for Manpower & Reserve Affairs, Navy 07/12/2001
Michael Parker Assistant Secretary for Civil Works, Army 09/26/2001
Reginald Jude Brown Assistant Secretary for Manpower & Reserve Affairs, Army 07/12/2001
John Stenbit Assistant Secretary for Command, Control, Communications & Intelligence 08/03/2001
Ronald M. Sega Director, Defense Research and Engineering 08/03/2001
John J. Young, Jr. Assistant Secretary for Research, Development & Acquisition, Navy 07/12/2001
Joseph E. Schmitz Inspector General 03/21/2002
Michael L. Dominguez Assistant Secretary for Manpower, Reserve Affairs, Installations & Environment, Air Force 08/03/2001
Nelson F. Gibbs Assistant Secretary for Installations & Environment, Air Force 08/03/2001
H.T. Johnson Assistant Secretary (Navy) for Installations & Environment 08/03/2001
Mario P. Fiori Assistant Secretary (Army) for Installations & Environment 08/03/2001
Sandra L. Pack Assistant Secretary (Army) for Financial Management & Comptroller 11/08/2001
William Winkenwerder, Jr. Assistant Secretary for Health Affairs 10/16/2001
Mary L. Walker General Counsel, Air Force 11/08/2001
Claude M. Bolton, Jr. Assistant Secretary for Acquisition, Logistics & Technology, Army 12/20/2001
Dale Klein Assistant to the Secretary for Nuclear and Chemical and Biological Defense Programs 11/08/2001
Peter B. Teets Undersecretary of the Air Force 12/07/2001
R. L. Brownlee Undersecretary of the Army 11/08/2001
Thomas Forrest Hall Assistant Secretary for Reserve Affairs 10/02/2002
Charles S. Abell Deputy Under Secretary for Personnel and Readiness 11/12/2002
http://www.appointee.brookings.org/resourcecenter/countdowna.pdf Sorry about the bare link...it should work, I was just too lazy this morning to format the whole document just so the link would be nice and neat.
Oops...forgot to get State in there, not enough coffee...
STATE:
Colin Powell Secretary of State 01/20/2001
Marc Grossman Undersecretary for Political Affairs 03/23/2001
Grant S. Green Undersecretary for Management 03/28/2001
Richard Armitage Deputy Secretary of State 02/12/2001
William H. Taft IV Legal Advisor 04/05/2001
John R. Bolton Undersecretary for Arms Control & Intl. Sec. 05/08/2001
James Andrew Kelly Asst. Secretary for E. Asian & Pacific Affairs 04/26/2001
Lincoln P. Bloomfield Asst. Secretary for Political Military Affairs 05/22/2001
John D. Negroponte Representative to the United Nations 09/14/2001
Ruth Davis Director General of Foreign Service 05/25/2001
Paula J. Dobriansky Undersecretary for Global Affairs 04/26/2001
William J. Burns Assistant Secretary for the Near East 05/25/2001
Donald Burnham Ensenat Chief of Protocol 05/25/2001
Walter Kansteiner Assistant Secretary for African Affairs 05/25/2001
Francis X. Taylor Coordinator for Counterterrorism 07/11/2001
Pierre-Richard Prosper Ambassador at Large for War Crimes Issues 07/11/2001
Otto J. Reich Assistant Secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs Recess
Charlotte L. Beers Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy 09/26/2001
Lorne W. Craner Assistant Secretary for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor 05/25/2001
Clark Kent Ervin Inspector General 08/01/2001
Carl W. Ford Assistant Secretary for Intelligence & Research 05/25/2001
Colonel Paul V. Kelly Assistant Secretary for Legislative & Intergovernmental Affairs 05/25/2001
Elizabeth Jones Assistant Secretary for European Affairs 05/25/2001
Christina B. Rocca Assistant Secretary for South Asian Affairs 05/25/2001
Dennis L. Schornack Commissioner, International Joint Commission Recess
William A. Eaton Assistant Secretary for Administration 07/11/2001
Patricia de Stacy Harrison Assistant Secretary for Educational and Cultural Affairs 09/26/2001
Patrick Francis Kennedy US Representative for U.N. Management and Reform 09/14/2001
John F. Wolf Assistant Secretary for Nonproliferation 09/26/2001
John F. Turner Assistant Secretary for Oceans, International Environmental & Scientific Affairs 10/30/2001
John V. Hanford, III Ambassador at Large for International Religious 01/25/2002
Sichan Siv U.S. Representative to the UN for Economic & Social Affairs 11/09/2001
Richard S. Williamson U.S. Alternative Representative to the UN for Special Political Affairs 11/09/2001
Christopher B. Burnham Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Secretary for Resource Management 01/25/2002
Arthur E. Dewey Assistant Secretary for Population, Refugees & Migration 01/25/2002
Grant S. Green Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources 12/04/2001
David O'Brien Martin Commissioner, International Joint Commission 01/08/2002
Stephen G. Rademaker Assistant Secretary for Arms Control 08/01/2002
Paula A. DeSutter Assistant Secretary for Verification & Compliance 08/01/2002
Kim R. Holmes Assistant Secretary for International Organizations 11/14/2002
James Cunningham Deputy to US Ambassador & Permanent Representative to the UN Holdover
Alan Larson Undersecretary for Economic & Business Affairs Holdover
Earl A. Wayne Assistant Secretary for Economic & Business Affairs Holdover
Norman Wulf Special Representative for Nuclear Nonproliferation Holdover
Richard A. Boucher Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Holdover Holdover
David G. Carpenter Assistant Secretary for Diplomatic Security Holdover