Vice President Cheney's task force on terrorism never met
http://democrats.senate.gov/dpc/dpc-...me=fs-108-2-99
(Gold9472: I'm posting this not to show "incompetence", but to show who's responsibility it was to protect us against "domestic terrorism", remembering that this person's priorities were with the Energy Task Force instead. Planning for the war with Afghanistan and Iraq was more important than protecting American citizens from "domestic terrorism".)
On May 8, 2001, President Bush announced that Vice President Cheney would "oversee the development of a coordinated national effort so that we may do the very best possible job of protecting our people from catastrophic harm." (Statement by the President) The task force was to focus specifically, in Vice President Cheney's words, on the threat of "domestic terrorism...a terrorist organization overseas or even another state using weapons of mass destruction against the U.S., a hand-carried nuclear weapon or biological or chemical agents." (CNN, 5/8/01) Moreover, President Bush announced that he would "periodically chair a meeting of the National Security Council to review these efforts." (Statement by the President, 5/8/01) The Washington Post reports that, in the four months between the President's announcement and the September 11 attacks, "neither Cheney's review nor Bush's took place." (1/20/02). According to the 9-11 Commission, the Cheney Task Force "was just getting underway when the 9/11 attack occurred." (9-11 Commission, Staff Statement Number 8, "National Policy Coordination," p. 9).