Ferrablog

A week or two back, I asked why didn't the Bush administration retaliate for the attack on the Cole? Today, at the 9/11 hearings, Condi Rice was asked the same question and her answer (I have to paraphrase here, since it was about five minutes ago and I don't have a transcript) was that we didn't respond because we didn't want to go "tit for tat" with Al Qaeda. If we had attacked in response and Bin Laden survived, it would have "emboldened" him even more. Emboldened him to do something like, what, 9/11? Sheesh. An act of war against us, and we don't respond because it's "tit for tat"? As James Thompson, a Republican, followed up, how many more attacks would have been required before we responded? She had no good answer for this. The only thing she could offer was that they wanted to implement a more comprehensive response to Al Qaeda. Of course, given how documented the fact is that they paid little attention to Al Qaeda pre-9/11, this comprehensive response was never going to come without further attacks.