Ed, the African embassy attacks occurred in August 98, several months before Clinton received the PDB item about OBL planning to hijack aircraft. Also, during his administration--and after the embassy attacks--CIA had assets on the ground in Afghanistan, ready to take a shot at OBL. Clinton wanted "consensus" from his advisers, and because Reno (and others) suggested that OBL should be arrested, Clinton--in his own handwriting--edited the document authorizing the CIA to go after OBL, stating that he could not be killed unless it was in the course of an attempt to capture him. This made little sense to the CIA people planning the operation, nor to their Afghan tribal assets who would have carried it out.

Rumsfeld wanted to revamp the military into a more agile force. He did indeed shunt aside people who disagreed with him.

Once again, here is the exact wording of the National Intelligence Estimate's key judgment (of "high confidence") on Iraq and WMD's: "Iraq possesses proscribed chemical and biological weapons and missiles." That's pretty clear and concise. And the last group of UN inspectors--the ones that pulled out in early 03--did indeed find (and destroy) the missiles that were in violation of the cease-fire agreement from the Gulf War. So other than the hard core antiwar left--and there aren't many of those types in Congress--in the wake of 9/11, who would NOT give the President war powers, based on that assessment?

Concerning Congress, the 9/11 Commission reserved its harshest criticism not for the Intelligence Community itself, but rather for Congressional oversight of intelligence--which they judged to be "dysfunctional". Darned harsh, considering several members of the 9/11 Commission were themselves former members of Congress. But it's quite instructive, IMO, that the Senate Intelligence Committee found much to criticize in the assessment of Iraq's WMD programs AFTER the invasion--but didn't raise any questions when they received and reviewed the National Intelligence Estimate BEFORE the invasion. Out here in Iowa, I think we'd compare that to closing the barn door after the cows have all gotten out.