Doug Feith, "the dumbest $%&ing guy on the planet"

So says retired Gen. Tommy Franks. Sheesh, that's harsh. Why would he say such a cruel thing about this dedicated public servant?

The report's tone is evenhanded and nonpartisan, but the facts gathered here are devastating for the Bush administration. The Clinton team may have dithered over plans to kidnap (or kill) Osama bin Laden in 1998 and '99, but they did manage to mobilize the government at every level to deal with al Qaeda's Millennium Plot. The Clinton administration gathered a small crisis group at the White House that made sure every agency worked to thwart al Qaeda's planned terrorist attack. The Bush team, in contrast, didn't get serious about bin Laden until those planes hit their targets. Indeed, it's shattering to read the report's account of the summer of 2001, well before the assault, when al Qaeda operatives couldn't stop chattering about the big, big terrorist attack they were planning -- and the Bush administration never went into full crisis mode. "Many officials told us they knew something terrible was planned, and they were desperate to stop it," the report notes. But they didn't, in part because the White House didn't take control.

Even after 9/11, some senior Bush officials didn't seem to get it. Another of those little-noticed footnotes describes a Sept. 20, 2001, memo prepared by Undersecretary of Defense Douglas J. Feith, apparently for his boss, Donald H. Rumsfeld. According to the commission, "the author expressed disappointment at the limited options immediately available in Afghanistan and the lack of ground options. The author suggested instead hitting terrorists outside the Middle East in the initial offensive, perhaps deliberately selecting a non-al Qaeda target like Iraq. Since U.S. attacks were expected in Afghanistan, an American attack in South America or Southeast Asia might be a surprise to the terrorists." If Feith really wrote such a memo, how is it possible that he is still in his job?

Oh, I see.

Meanwhile, today George Bush announces the creation of his "terrorism czar.

In asking Congress to create the position of a national intelligence director, Bush said the person holding the post would be appointed by the president, with the advice and consent of the Senate, and would serve at the pleasure of the president. The director would serve as the president's principal intelligence adviser, overseeing and coordinating the foreign and domestic activities of the intelligence community.

But -- please pardon my ignorance -- what does Condaleeza Rice do?

...The panel calls for a national intelligence director in the White House, for example. But shorn of the bureaucratic leverage the CIA director now has, that official might actually have less clout. In truth, nothing would have prevented the national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, from mobilizing anti-terrorism policy against al Qaeda in the months before 9/11. That's what makes this story a tragedy -- that existing institutions of government might have averted the disaster, if they had taken action.

Indeed.