25 Years After 9/11: What Did America Learn from the War on Terror? | Peter Bergen

Bob Crawford (0:00)

Let's take us to September 11th, 2001, when you saw the towers attacked, while everyone was trying to figure out what the heck was going on. What was Peter Bergen thinking?

Peter Bergen (0:11)

Well, I knew it was bin Laden.

Bob Crawford (0:16)

You've reached American History Hotline. You ask the questions, we get the answers. Leave a message. Hey there, American History Hotliners. Bob Crawford here. I'm thrilled to be joining you again for another episode of American History Hotline. It's the show where you ask the questions. The best way to get us a question is to visit our website. That's americanhistoryhotline.com.

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Today's question comes from Daphne in California. She writes, I can't believe we're stuck in this war in Iran. I was in high school when 9-11 happened, and I feel like we just got out of Afghanistan. Why do we keep getting into these wars in the Middle East? Haven't we learned better? Daphne, that is a great question, and I've been waiting for the right time to answer this one because this year marks the 25th anniversary of 9-11.

My guest is one of the most informed people when it comes to American foreign policy, post-9-11, and America's War on Terror. Joining me now is Peter Bergen. He's the New York Times best-selling author of the book Man Hunt, which is about the search for Osama bin Laden. His latest book is titled All the President's Wars, Twenty-Five Years of America's War on Terror. It just came out this week. Peter, thanks for joining me today.

Peter Bergen (1:51)

Thank you for having me on, Bob.

Bob Crawford (1:54)

Peter, I want to ask you, last week we were doing our fantasy football draft, and it's a bunch of fathers and sons. We've been doing it for about seven years. Anyway, one of the 15-year-olds says, right when we started, he says, Mr. Crawford, what do you know about the USS Cole?

I thought to myself, I hadn't thought about it in years. The Cole happened in October of 2000, and I explained it to him like this, and I could have been wrong, but I'd love to get your take on this. I said that the attack on the USS Cole was the shot across the bow by bin Laden and al Qaeda against the United States, and that to my understanding, the bombing of the Cole was being planned at the same time 9-11 was being planned. How close did I get it?

Peter Bergen (2:52)

Yeah, I mean, I think that's exactly correct, and shot across the bow is almost a great pun.

Bob Crawford (2:58)

Sadly, yes.

Peter Bergen (2:59)

Yeah. But so yes, the serious planning for 9-11 began in 1999 The plan to attack the Cole, in fact, there was a plan to blow up the USS The Sullivan's, which is named after the five Sullivan brothers who were all killed in World War II.

And the Sullivan's was going to, there was an attempt to blow it up right around January 3rd of 2000 It didn't work out. Al-Qaeda, we didn't know that at the time. Al-Qaeda came back and unfortunately did succeed in blowing a hole the size of a small house in the USS Cole. On October 7th, 2000 and killing 17 American sailors.

Unfortunately, the United States did very little about it. It was clear to any outside observer and also to the CIA that Al-Qaeda was responsible, but the Clinton administration was only in office for the next four months. And then the Bush administration came in and they were, I think, didn't really absorb the fact that Al-Qaeda was really going to be a problem. They were veterans of the Cold War. Condoleezza Rice, the National Security Advisor, was a Sovietologist, is a Sovietologist. That's what her PhD was about.

Donald Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defense, had served in the Ford White House as Chief of Staff. And so did Dick Cheney, who was the Vice President. So they all kind of came out of this Cold War mindset that a non-state group like Al-Qaeda really wouldn't be a problem. That you have to worry about states like Iraq and Russia. And of course, that turned out to be a very mistaken assumption.

Bob Crawford (4:45)

So is it also a factor or you hear this when you hear a lot of punditry about this time period, that the handoff between the Clinton administration and the Bush administration was kind of haphazard. There were some shenanigans on the Clinton side. And so it was to end with the recount, the Florida recount made that go later than would have typically happened. So that handoff wasn't exactly smooth and that made the Bush administration slow to get up to speed on things like bin Laden.