The Washington Post is reporting that National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice was scheduled to give a major foreign policy speech on Sept. 11, 2001 calling for missile defense to be the centerpiece of the country’s defense strategy.

The speech, of course, was canceled.

It is making news now because of what she was scheduled to say–or more specifically not say.

According to U.S. officials who saw the text of her speech, Al Qaeda was never mentioned as a possible threat. Osama Bin Laden wasn’t mentioned either.

Instead Rice was set to argue missile defense was needed to combat “the threats and problems of today and the day after, not the world of yesterday.”

The Washington Post reports, “The speech provides telling insight into the administration’s thinking on the very day that the United States suffered the most devastating attack since the 1941 bombing of Pearl Harbor.”

The speech appears to explicitly support the charge of the Bush administration’s former counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke that Bush and Rice were not focused on the danger of terrorism in the lead-up to 9/11.