Remember this?
On May 16, Rice held a press briefing; she insisted that no one could have envisioned the events of September 11. “I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people…would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile,” Rice said.
And how we later learned this, from Bob Woodward and Dan Eggan?
But a 1999 report prepared for the National Intelligence Council, an affiliate of the CIA, warned that terrorists associated with bin Laden might hijack an airplane and crash it into the Pentagon, White House or CIA headquarters.
The report recounts well-known case studies of similar plots, including a 1995 plan by al Qaeda operatives to hijack and crash a dozen U.S. airliners in the South Pacific and pilot a light aircraft into Langley.
And now we have George Bush, on this morning's GMA:
"I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees."
But hey, funny thing:
In the event of a slow-moving Category 4 or Category 5 hurricane (with winds up to or exceeding 155 miles per hour), it's possible that only those crow's nests would remain above the water level. Such a storm, plowing over the lake, could generate a 20-foot surge that would easily overwhelm the levees of New Orleans, which only protect against a hybrid Category 2 or Category 3 storm (with winds up to about 110 miles per hour and a storm surge up to 12 feet).
This Administration needs a better imagination.
