| The voice of the whistleblower is coming ever closer to the secure phone of the most powerful woman in the world. She is Condoleezza Rice, President Bushs national security adviser, a role in which she coordinates defence and foreign policy. Since September 11, Condi as Bush calls her has been his closest adviser, the woman he turns to before making up his mind. Rice, 47, a former academic and Soviet specialist, started her political life with Bush when he was governor of Texas, tutoring him on foreign affairs. She was his first choice to join him in the White House. Slender-fingered, the fingers of the classical pianist she is, and with a melon grin, Rice belies her age of 47 and brings a sense of style to the other two pillars of Bushs kitchen cabinet: Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Colin Powell, Secretary of State. She has acted as referee in the clashes between both men. Recently those arguments have centered on the Middle East, Iraq, and the status of the al-Qaeda prisoners held in Cuba. But now those issues have been joined by a more troubling one. It centers on the whistleblower. Coleen Rowley is far removed from the elegant world of the White House. She occupied a pokey office in the FBI building in Minneapolis where she was the bureaus chief legal assistant. Now she has become the focus of intense interest to Rice. A week ago the National Security Adviser had never heard of Rowley. But throughout her recent European trip with Bush, Rowley was never far from Rices thoughts. For the FBI lawyer had, in classic whistle-blower style, leaked a 13-page memo that has led to intense pressure for President Bush to order a widespread investigation into the failure of the U.S. intelligence community to take action that may just may have averted the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The memo paints a grim picture of a climate of fear within FBI headquarters in Washington and accuses its director, the bullish Robert Mueller, of making misleading public statements of the bureaus handling of the case. Rowley has claimed, Certain facts have been omitted, downplayed, glossed over or mischaracterized. Further support has come from another federal counter-terrorism specialist. He is Kenneth Williams who was attached to the FBI Phoenix office. Last July two full months before the attacks on the WTC and Pentagon he alerted FBI headquarters in Washington that Islamic extremists and possible terrorists are learning to fly at American flight-training schools and are seeking inside information on the nations aviation system and its security. The warning did not trigger alarm bells in the upper echelons of the FBI. Instead, Williams five-page memo disappeared into the maw of the FBI bureaucratic filing system. These serious security failures are now of prime concern to Condi Rice. For they raise a question. How is it possible that neither FBI chief Mueller or his counterpart in the CIA, Director George Tenet, had not even given Rice an inkling of what could be afoot? Certainly the briefing which the CIA gave Bush last August on how al-Qaeda might attack the United States was strangely short on new information. The question now being asked is: did Rice know more but not pass it on to Potus the telephone key numbered zero on her telephone console that links her to the President of the United States? So far she has maintained her position in a passionate defence of the Administrations handling of the CIA briefing. Our main worry last summer was that al-Qaeda might hi-jack an aircraft and use it to bargain for the release of prisoners. I dont think anyone could have predicted that these people would take an aircraft and smash it into the World Trade Center, that they would try to use an aeroplane as a missile, she has said. How much did she know about the specific FBI memos from Rowley and Williams? I dont recall seeing anything of this kind, she has insisted. But the question is increasingly being asked: if she did not know why not? She has described her role as National Security Adviser as I try to help the President think things through what he thinks rather than imposing what I think. Because I;m a professor by training and its been my lifes work to come to terms with what people think, its perfect for this job. Its a good job description. But it still does not answer the question: did she know what was going on in the intelligence community and if not, why not? The one certainty is that the deeply disturbing revelations by Coleen Rowley and Kenneth Williams have further rocked American confidence that they are secure from future attacks. The spate of warnings that are now emanating from senior administration officials including Rice have done little to convince many people that this is no more than a diversionary tactic to focus interest away from what did happen in the run-up to September 11 last. |
