There is one question that no-one has bothered to ask Richard Clarke: If you believe so deeply that Bush has butchered our foriegn policy and put the country in danger unnecessarilly, why did you spend the last year writing and publishing a book while the rest of the country hashed out the most important policy decisions of the last century? I dont think that's an unfair question. This discussion could have, and should have been had last February.

Dan;

Your suggestion that Clarke is more credible than O'Neil only proves how bad O'Niel was.

One of the many artilces I managed to find over the last few days about the man, written well prior to all of this is an example of what the left thought of the man:

Unsurprisingly, a two year review of Clarke literature in the news media shows the public record of the National Security Council advisor's speeches and interviews to be almost utterly devoid of substantive discussion on computer security and 'cyberterror' but rich in cliche and numblingly over-reliant on simplistic and unsubstantiated claims. In fact, Clarke's public work resembles looks like nothing more than a ham-handed campaign of threat-mongering propaganda...."

Let's remember that this is the man that gave us the Y2K scare... you may recall it amounted to nada, for the most part.

You will also doubtless recall that Clarke was running the show on Security and had Bill Clinton's ear, supposedly, while we watched Al Quieda performe dall kind of criminal and warlike acts:

*In 1993: AQ Shoots down US helicopters and killing US servicemen in Somalia

*In 1994: A Plot to assassinate Pope John Paul II during his visit to Manila,and nigh on succeeded.

*In 1995: In a move you'd think would get their attention, AQ plotted to kill President Clinton during a visit to the Philippines.

*Also in 1995: AQ plotted to to bomb simultaneously, in midair, a dozen US trans-Pacific flights.

*In 1998: AQ conducted the bombings of the US Embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. IN total, these attacks killed at least 300 people and injured on the order of 4000 more.

*1999: AQ tried to carry out terrorist operations against Israeli and US tourists who were visiting Jordan for millennial celebrations.

* Again in 1999: In another millenium plot, bomber was caught en route to Los Angeles International Airport

*And in 2000: USS Cole was attacked in the port of Aden, killing 17 US Navy members, and injuring another 39

Now, all of these went down while Richard Clarke was in control of hte situation. I don't recall him giving AQ any serious response. (Unless you consider targeting missles at empty, long deserted training camps, or perhaps an asprin factory, to be a proper reseponse....

Clarke claims Mr. Bush ignored AQ for months. Bottom line is, Clinton, and Clarke himself ignored it for bloody well YEARS. But what gets the headlines now?

And why does this get the headlines now? Clarke's book.

Which is published by Simon and Shuster, which is owned by Viacom... and is being pushed by 60 minutes and CBS news.. which is also owned by Viacom, and in particular has a leftist slant to them which has become the stuff of legend.

Can you imagine a conflict of interest of this magnatude at Fox news not causing riots?

The bottom line here is htat prior to 9/11 AQ was not the biggest prioity on anyone's list, including that of Clarke himself. Anything beyond that is hype designed to sell books, build viewership, and eleminate those nasty Republicans.

Sorry, Dan, but I'm not buying it.

There is one question that no-one has bothered to ask Richard Clarke: If you believe so deeply that Bush has butchered our foriegn policy and put the country in danger unnecessarilly, why did you spend the last year writing and publishing a book while the rest of the country hashed out the most important policy decisions of the last century?

Because if he had weighed in back when we were hashing out the issue, he like so many of the opponents of going into Iraq, probably would have stated that he believed that Iraq still had WMD’s (which was the international and bipartisan consensus at the time) and/or would have made a series of predictions (e.g. chemical/bio weapons attack, rising up of the Arab street, urban warfare, etc.) which did not come to pass.

In which case it is safer politically to remain silent during the actual debate and later say that you “knew all along” rather than weigh in and risk being proven incorrect.

Except that the idea that a war on Iraq has any rational connection to a war on terrorism depends on having a coherent post-war plan for Iraq...which Bush & Co doesn't have, and never had.

Post-war Iraq has been so badly handled that Iraq has become what Bush erroneously said it was before the war: a haven and hotbed of terrorists. Fissures are developing between all fo the power centeres: Sunni v Shia; secular v. Islamicist; Kurd v Iraq.

The US is in no condition to provide aid or leadership in overcoming those divisions, at least not under Bush. (Quick! Who is Bush's go-to person for mediating multi-ethnic disputes and building a free and democratic polyglotic society?)

No, the most damning charge Clarke makes, in terms of human heartache and might-have-beens, is that Bush diverted resources from the war on terrorism in favor of his splendid little war in Iraq. Everything we spent on Iraq -- the soldiers, the intel, the money, the everything -- was a resource we did NOT spend hunting al-Qaeda. And al-Qaeda took full advantage of the rest break: it's resurgent in Afghanistan, regrouping globally, and carrying out mass murder attacks again.

Add to this the fact that Bush played directly into the hands of every Islamicist that hates the West -- not only by invading Iraq, but yammering on about Crusade this, and God-told-him-to-invade that, and generally acting and speaking like an ignorant, arrogant idiot -- and that makes a further farce of the idea that Bush has made the world or the country safer today than it was 2, 3, 4 years ago.

Ciel, your comments make no sense and bear no resemblence to reality, so I'll have to ignore them. You sound like an ignorant, arrogant idiot who prepared your remarks over a year ago based on your own predjudices, and refuse to change them.

There's a legitimate argument that Al Qaeda's activities were ignored pre-9/11. However, that charge could equally be laid at the previous Administration's feet as well, which Clarke is refusing to do. Strangely, he defends the Clinton Administration even as he notes that they rejected most of his suggestions. Similarly, he defended the missile attack on the plant in Sudan at the time despite the low quality of intelligence, stating that any risk of Al Qaeda or others getting WMDs was enough to act. Then, he changes his tune about Iraq. Smells like an bureaucrat upset at being demoted.

Even if Clarke was steadfast in promoting going after Al Qaeda (which certainly didn't happen, not in Afghanistan where it was necessary-- not that I think Clinton should be particularly blamed for this as I don't think it was politically possible), his public statements were all about the dangers of cyberterrorism and Y2K as the most dangerous aspects of terrorism. Second to that, according to Clarke, was the risk of narcotics smuggling providing funds for terrorism. Perhaps he said other things in private, of course, but not publically.

He just doesn't have a lot of credibility here for me.

Oh, and BTW: Clarke has not been soaking up the rays since he left the Bush White House, waiting only for his book to be published to tell the US what he knows. As has been pointed out in numerous places, Clarke has tried repeatedly to get his views out to the public, most notably in Time magazine October (I think, October) 2002.

"Yes, if we could turn back time, we'd have given AQ more consideration. But it probably would not have prevented 9/11. And don't claim that we could solve a problem in eight months that the last team -- in which Clarke was the lead on this policy front -- couldn't solve over eight years."

I haven't read his book, but ...

Was he asking them to "solve the problem" or was he asking them to FOCUS on the problem? Apparently,the focus was more towards state actors - like Iraq.

John - Are you David Thomas by another name? You have the same charming manners and keen yet dispassionate analysis.

From what you've said, it is clear that the reason Clarke has little credibility with you is because all you know about what he says is the filtered version put out by Rush & Co. Have you listened to Clarke himself at all? Or perhaps to Bob Graham? Or to Wesley Clark? Or to anyone who worked with him in the Reagan/Bush I Administrations?

Yes, Ceil, he has been granting interviews.

For example, let's take an article from the New Yorker, dated 2003...

http://newyorker.com/fact/content/?030804fa_fact

Richard Clarke, the country’s first counter-terrorism czar, told me in an interview at his home in Arlington, Virginia, that he wasn’t particularly surprised that the Bush Administration’s efforts to find bin Laden had been stymied by political problems. He had seen such efforts fail before

"Clarke emphasized that the C.I.A. director, George Tenet, President Bush, and, before him, President Clinton were all deeply committed to stopping bin Laden; nonetheless, Clarke said, their best efforts had been doomed by bureaucratic clashes, caution, and incessant problems with Pakistan."

But now, it's all President Bush's fault.
Guess that angle generates more coverage at CBS, huh?

Great catch Bit. Wonder whats changed his tune? (Cha-ching?)

Bravo, Daniel.

Independent-minded conservatives know that Clarke is no liberal peacenik.

I may be missing something here. As head of 'counter terrorist' intelligence at NSC wasn't it his job to prevent such attacks as 9/11? Given that spectacular failure in counter terrorism, Clarke should have no credibility. Will anyone say CYA?

Ciel
I guess I'm another ignorant, arrogant idiot because everything you said rang true and seems to pretty well mesh with the reality of this universe.

Agreed. Bravo, Bravo!

It's refreshing to see a sober independent minded take on this, in stark contrast to the hyperventilating I've seen just about everywhere else.

Clark sounds a lot different when not pushing a book for sale. Just like O'Neil, he's nothing but a clown wrapped in fraudulent intent.

Consider an interview with Clarke from PBS's Frontline: Clarke initially defends President Clinton, but the interviewer from Frontline with obvious knowledge of the chronology following the bombing of the USS Cole in October 2000, presses him:

FRONTLINE: Some also say that due to the Lewinsky scandal, more action perhaps was never undertaken. In your eyes?

CLARKE: The interagency group on which I sat and John O'Neill sat--we never asked for a particular action to be authorized and were refused. We were never refused. Any time we took a proposal to higher authority, with one or two exceptions, it was approved . . .

FRONTLINE: But didn't you push for military action after the [al Qaeda bombing of the USS] Cole?

CLARKE: Yes, that's one of the exceptions..

FRONTLINE: How important is that exception?

CLARKE: I believe that, had we destroyed the terrorist camps in Afghanistan earlier, that the conveyor belt that was producing terrorists sending them out around the world would have been destroyed. So many, many trained and indoctrinated al Qaeda terrorists, which now we have to hunt down country by country, many of them would not be trained and would not be indoctrinated, because there wouldn't have been a safe place to do it if we had destroyed the camps earlier.

FRONTLINE: Without intelligence operatives on the ground in these organizations, how in the end does one stop something like this? If you look back on it now and you had one wish, you could have had one thing done, what would it have been?

CLARKE: Blow up the camps and take out their sanctuary. Eliminate their safe haven, eliminate their infrastructure. They would have been a hell of a lot less capable of recruiting people. Their whole "Come to Afghanistan where you'll be safe and you'll be trained"--well, that wouldn't have worked if every time they got a camp together, it was blown up by the United States. That's the one thing that we recommended that didn't happen--the one thing in retrospect I wish had happened.

FRONTLINE: So that's a pretty basic mistake that we made?

CLARKE: Well, I'm not prepared to call it a mistake. It was a judgment made by people who had to take into account a lot of other issues. None of these decisions took place in isolation. There was the Middle East peace process going on. There was the war in Yugoslavia going on. People above my rank had to judge what could be done in the counterterrorism world at a time when they were also pursuing other national goals.

The "conveyor belt" was, of course, never destroyed. But that fact seems not to matter to Clarke, who nonetheless suggests that the Bush administration bears most of the responsibility for September 11. Eight months in Office versus 8 YEARS

Bithead wrote:
But now, it's all President Bush's fault.

To characterize Clarke's criticism that way, and to imply that what he said to the New Yorker is inconsistent with what he said to CBS merely indicates that you didn't see his interview or bother to read the transcript.

Does your understanding go any deeper than "he dissed the prez, man"?

Well, let's see.
I did see the program, I did get the transcript. So, there goes that.,....

John Podhoretz says this about Richard Clarke:

“RICHARD Clarke is the greatest man who has ever strode this planet's surface. I know this because I have just read his book, "Against All Enemies."

Some might suggest that the book is a distorted, false, sour-grapes account from a demoted government official who wants to settle scores and destroy the Bush administration in which he served as a holdover staffer from the Clinton years.

But that's because they simply don't comprehend the power and the glory that is Dick Clarke.”

http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/21563.htm

“Rational Bush supporters will acknowledge that at best there was a loose connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda, but that remaking Iraq is a vital part of the war on terror because it will help to remake the Middle East, terrorism's primary source.”

Dan Drezner is forgetting that some of us also were utterly convinced that Saddam Hussein would discreetly fund terrorists operations against the West. He was on a mission to cause us enormous harm. That alone was enough of a reason to invade Iraq. There is no way to win the war on terrorism if Saddam is still in power.

1) The best source for the viewpoint and attitude of the Bush White House prior to Sept 11 is Senator Richard Shelby, Republican Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Not only did he have full clearance to US intelligence, he had a close political relationship with the White House.

2) On June 26,2001, the Washington Post's "Back Channels" column --devoted to coverage of the Intelligence Community --
reported that the US military was on the highest state of alert throughout the Middle East due to alarm about Al Qaeda. The column then quoted a confident Senator Richard C Shelby as saying re Bin Laden:
----------------
"He's on the run, and I think he will continue to be on the run, because we are not going to let up," Shelby said. "I don't think you could say he's got us hunkered down. I believe he's more hunkered down," Shelby said. "He's moved and tried to be one step ahead of our intelligence on where he might be. He knows he's hunted, and he's not exactly strolling down the streets of London or Paris or Berlin, shopping."
----------
Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A45532-2001Jun25¬Found=true

3) It's also worth noting that Senator Shelby and the Republican Congresses of 1994-2001 cut the personnel of the Intelligence Community by 25% in the 1990s (Citation available on request) --in response to Ross Perot's challange over balancing the budget.

“The fact that both Rice and Cheney have addressed this head-on demonstrates, in Kevin Drum's language, that "the White House is sure acting like they have the potential to do some serious damage."”

And this proves what? Richard Clarke indeed does “have the potential to do some serious damage.” We live in an unfair world and the Bush administration would be foolish not to realize that the liberal establishment will do just about anything to destroy it. There is one thing that is not debatable: Clarke is going to make a lot of money! Please tell me how this might have occurred if he did not blast the President?

"It's also worth noting that Senator Shelby and the Republican Congresses of 1994-2001 cut the personnel of the Intelligence Community by 25% in the 1990s "

Funny how its Bill Clinton's budget when the deficit is being eliminated, but its the Republic Congresses budget when terrorism isnt getting funded. Who's signatures would be on the 93-01 budgets btw?

David Thompson,

Take a deep breath, put down the New York Post, turn off Rush Limbaugh, and think for a second. Clarke has acknowledged that more could have been done by himself and the Clinton administration. The main story here is not that "Bush alone is at fault for 9/11"--that kind of rhetoric (the alternate is, "U-uh, it's all Clinton's fault") is appropriate for far-left loonies and hack partisans on the right.

The most important point here is that the terrorist attacks were used as an excuse to launch a foreign policy plan (to depose Hussein) that was already in the works, and that the American people were mislead and manipulated into it through various storylines which--now pay attention here--have *all* proven to be false (WMDs, links with al Qaeda, etc.). More importantly, and this is where Clarke has serious objections, resources have been diverted to this enterprise that could have been used in the "War on Terror," and that has had an adverse effect on our ability to wage it.

You say: "Dan Drezner is forgetting that some of us also were utterly convinced that Saddam Hussein would discreetly fund terrorists operations against the West. He was on a mission to cause us enormous harm. That alone was enough of a reason to invade Iraq. There is no way to win the war on terrorism if Saddam is still in power. "

I think most Americans would disagree that this would have been enough reason to invade Iraq, otherwise the administration wouldn't have put forward such a well-planned campaign of propaganda and misiniformation to dupe people into thinking that the threat was much more present and real than it was. I won't say "is" because I'm inclined to agree with another poster that we've probably (as many people warned before we started this mess) created more terrorists when we occupied Iraq--certainly the 660 people who have died of suicide bombings there (an unprecedented phenomenon in that country) would have a different perspective.

We're batting .455 – 22 posts and 10 ad homonym attacks on Mr. Clarke.

Do you guys really think that everything he says is driven by a political calculus to "get revenge" or to sell a book? How does that make sense in light of his past service to administrations of both parties? Do you really think that everyone who disagrees with you or the administration does so out of bad or selfish motives?

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, the list of untrustworthy hacks who worked for the president seems to get longer and longer. Looks like the person who chose these people to work for the president should be FIRED.

Maybe in November?

Bithead - re you list if AQ attacks in the 90's. Doesn't look like Rumsfeld was too concerned about them based on his assertion today that it would have been a mistake to go after Bin Laden before 9/11.

This following view of the world must not be ignored. It reminds us why a liberal democrat in the White House is a danger to our country:

“...we've probably (as many people warned before we started this mess) created more terrorists when we occupied Iraq”

The terrorists are not reacting to our legitimate use of force. No, on the contrary---appeasement policies, the reluctance to combat terrorism, is what really encourages them to perform further acts of violence. A John Kerry presidency, deep in its guts, would be fearful that military force will usually backfire. This is the Viet Nam syndrome and the Massachusetts senator cannot get away from his anti-war roots.

I don't really know what drives Clarke. I suppose, like most of us, a number of things. But I will repeat what I said on my own blog (which I suppose is Steve Hayes' point and is ridiculously obvious anyway). Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans distinguished themselves on the anti-terrorism until 9/11. End of story. In this case, it's Occam's Razor. The rest is politics.

“We're batting .455 – 22 posts and 10 ad homonym attacks on Mr. Clarke.”

Everyone is forced to deal with Richard Clarke’s credibility. None of us were there during these alleged discussions. The point I made concerning the marketing aspects of the book are most accurate. Clarke makes lots of money only if he attacks President Bush. Does anybody disagree? Where am I wrong?

curious: "The most important point here is that the terrorist attacks were used as an excuse to launch a foreign policy plan (to depose Hussein) that was already in the works"

Why do you think this plan was already in the works prior to 9/11? I think the administration’s rhetoric and actions prior to 9/11 showed the opposite. They came into office looking to reduce American commitments abroad, not new places to invade.

The administration spent the spring of 2001 trying to get Smart Sanctions through the UN Security Council. The pre-existing sanctions were becoming ineffective as they being ignored by countries like France and Russia (see the Oil for Food Scandal) yet were imposing a heavy diplomatic cost of the US as we were continually being blamed for the suffering of Iraqi civilians. The new Smart Sanctions, which would be targeted on the regime and the military, were supposed to reduce this cost to the US by reducing civilian suffering and be more enforceable by reducing the volume of smuggled goods. This was all intended, over the long run, to make the containment of Saddam both more effective and less costly to the US.

The administration put a lot of effort into this plan, which pretty much shows that prior to 9/11 they were looking for a long-term plan to live with Saddam and not an excuse to attack him.

curious,

I wasn't mislead into anything. Just because you conveniently leave off the many other reasons for going into Iraq, including 17 broken UN resolutions (where regime change was to be the remedy,) doesn't mean they're going away.

Just ask the 25 million freed Iraqis. Oh right, someone did.

I think the policy-split point is sound--but remember, the
invasion of Iraq was not presented to the American people as
something to be done as part of this policy, but as a preventive
action against the threat from Iraq--including the strong implication (at a minimum) of a tie between Hussein and AQ.
I may disgree about policy, but dishonesty to the American people, followed by incompetence in planning for the postwar
period, is the real reason to vote this administration out.

"Why do you think this plan was already in the works prior to 9/11? I think the administration’s rhetoric and actions prior to 9/11 showed the opposite. They came into office looking to reduce American commitments abroad, not new places to invade. --Kevin

The fact is that an invasion was not politically possible before 9/11, no matter how much they wanted to go in. Even after 9/11, they had to wage a huge propaganda campaign to get the country behind them.

The PNAC report, the 'defending the realm' paper, Rumsfeld saying that we should "sweep it all up... things related and not" 5 hours after the attacks, Bob Woodward's book, and Richard Clarke's book -- all make me think that Iraq was a pre-existing agenda that had little to do with 9/11. Broken UN Resolutions and happy Iraqis aren't worth the cost of diverting us from Al-Qaeda.

Roger Simon's right -- both administrations screwed up badly. But for the Republicans to admit they're as incompetent as Democrats on national security takes away their one advantage.

Consider what Clarke's 1986 proposal to rattle Qadaffi with sonic booms says about his expertise in national security matters. Bureaucratic infighting is one skill. National security expertise is another.

I see a correlation between this 1986 advice and Clarke's later computer network sabotage fixation. He does not seem to have gotten past his early yo-yo tendencies.

And, for the record, I doubt much could have been done to avert 9/11. It wasn't just the Clinton administration. Here is an example of why a "defense only" policy could not have worked. I found this quote from pages 16-17 of Gerald Posner's Why America Slept on the Free Republic, and provide the URL:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1103916/posts

"Senior CIA officers complained to the president's national security team about their frustration with the FBI and warned that America was vulnerable to Islamic terrorists entering on legal visas and setting up sleeper cells. Reagan responded in September 1986 by forming an interagency task force, the Alien Border Control Committee (ABCC), whose purpose was to block entry of suspected terrorists and to deport militants who either had come into the country illegally or had overstayed their visas (emphasis mine). The CIA and FBI joined the ABCC effort.

Six months after its formation, the ABCC had its first notable success. The CIA tipped off the FBI to a group of suspected Palestinian terrorists in Los Angeles. The Bureau arrested eight men. But instead of being lauded, the Bureau and the Agency came under harsh attack from civil liberties groups who argued that the ABCC should be banned from using any information the CIA gained from the government's routine processing of visa requests. Congressman Barney Frank, the Massachusetts Democrat who was a strong advocate of protecting civil liberties, led a successful effort to amend the Immigration and Nationality Act so that membership in a terrorist group was no longer sufficient to deny a visa. Rendered toothless by the Frank amendment, the Reagan administration had virtually no way to block entry visas even when there was information linking the individuals to terrorist groups."

An offensive strategy against Al Qaeda was, in my 20-20 hindsight, almost impossible once it had a secure sanctuary in Afghanistan via its control of the Taliban. I read a report today that the Bush administration had decided just prior to 9/11 to use Masood's Northern Alliance as a vehicle to remove the Taliban from power, and give it lots of aid.

That would have run head on into Pakistan's shadow government aka its Inter-Service Intelligence agency, which was using its alliance with the Taliban as a means of controlling Afghanistan to a significant degree.

Note that we let Pakistan evacuate several thousand of its personnel from Taliban-controlled airfields in northern Afghanistan when the Northern Alliance's post-9/11 offensive against the Taliban got rolling. Those Pakistanis were fighting the Northern Alliance on behalf of the Taliban and Al Qaeda just prior to 9/11 and had been doing so for at least a year.

And this does not include implications of evidence that elements of the ISI were not merely allied with Al Qaeda, but directly supported the 9/11 hijackers.

The problems posed by Pakistani support of the Taliban, let alone Al Qaeda, was a major, major factor in the reluctance of the Clinton Administration in attempting to do anything effective offensively against Al Qaeda.

Hindsight shows there was no ****ing way that we could have taken out the Taliban quickly without flipping Pakistan, and it might not have been possible at all.

It looks to me like we had to take the hit first before we had the credibility to threaten Pakistan's existence, and only that threat (you might not remember it but I do) got Musharraf to change sides.

This New Yorker quote from Bithead's comment above corraborates my opinion (my emphasis):

"Clarke emphasized that the C.I.A. director, George Tenet, President Bush, and, before him, President Clinton were all deeply committed to stopping bin Laden; nonetheless, Clarke said, their best efforts had been doomed by bureaucratic clashes, caution, and incessant problems with Pakistan."

OTOH, there was much the Clinton administration could have done, but didn't, to nail Bin Laden and cripple Al Qaeda before they obtained their sanctuary in Afghanistan. That is where I have suspicions about Clarke.

David Thompson writes: "Clarke makes lots of money only if he attacks President Bush. Does anybody disagree? Where am I wrong?"

Do you honestly think a book-length prose blowjob of Bush would not have sold?

Sean Hannity hasn't become a rich man by bashing Bush...

David

Ad homanym attacks don't prove truth or falsity. They are a favorite in a litigator's bag of tricks when he dosn't have fact witnesses able to testify to contrary facts. The Bush folks are making lots of noise, but not proving contrary facts. They seem to be becoming experts at nondenial denials.

All sorts of people write books - that doesn't make them liars.

TomH

What suspicions? Curious.

Roger L. Simon writes: "Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans distinguished themselves on the anti-terrorism until 9/11."

Yes, but Bush is the one now in office, not Clinton. So if he screwed up, he ought to be held accountable. Just because Clinton "got away with it" because he was a lame duck is no reason to give Bush a free pass.

First, Dan - fabulous comments.

Second, DT - what is with you?

You wrote
"The terrorists are not reacting to our legitimate use of force. No, on the contrary---appeasement policies, the reluctance to combat terrorism, is what really encourages them to perform further acts of violence. A John Kerry presidency, deep in its guts, would be fearful that military force will usually backfire. This is the Viet Nam syndrome and the Massachusetts senator cannot get away from his anti-war roots.

What are you talking about? The one country in the world that faces nearly daily terrorist attacks is Israel. They've always advocated "eye for an eye" policies. You may disagree, but I rather think that that policy occasionally cause more violences. We can see in the next few weeks if I'm right.

Second, why are you (and so many other people on the board) convinced a Kerry administration would be an American version of Neville Chamberlin? Look at the man's 20 year voting record. When hasn't he supported military or intelligent increases to our defense budget? I could care less about his war record - look at his political one. He's been backing the miltiary consistently. What's your evidence (i.e. verifiable facts) that he is going to be worse then Bush?

Third, why does demeaning Kerry defend the Bush Administration? Regardless of Clarke's intent (and if you like, assume it's malicious) what matters is the facts.

1. Did the Bush Administration ignore a credible terrorist threat before 9/11/2001? Clarke's consistent story is that they did. The fact he is independently backed by other people involved in counter-terrorism supports his statement.

2. Has the Bush Adminsitration used the war on terror to force a confrontation and occupation of Iraq? Clarke says that Wolfowitz wanted to go to war with Iraq prior to 9/11/2001. He further states that Rumsfeld & Wolfowitz planned to attack Iraq before Afghanistan. He says he was fired for not being on message. What's his supporting arguement? Well, we could look at the Iraqi war plans drawn up in April 2002. We might look at Wolfowitz's consistent push for Iraqi invasion.

3. Did the Bush Administration knowingly lie to Congress, the American people, and the World by claiming Iraq caused 9/11, Saddam Hussein funded Osama Bin Laden, and the existence of a clear and present danger to the United States from Iraq? Given that Clarke, every anti-terrorism expert on the planet, and AlQueda say that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, I think we can say any statements by Administration officals (like Rice and Rumsfeld) promulgating the idea that Iraq funded/caused 9/11 is a lie. If we look at Hussein's pattern of terorist support, we can see that he always funded (a) very visbly, and (b) almost entirely on anti-Israeli terrorists. Furthermore the US governement paid Osama Bin Laden money to attack Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War. last and not least, Hussein was a socialist and atheist whom Bin Landen hated; Bin Laden has not supported any regime that hasn't espoused fundamentalist Sunni Islam. So claiming that funding occured is very likely a lie. Last and not least, on this board, no one has managed to defend the hypothesis that Iraq presented a clear and present danager to the US.

4. Did the Bush Administration realize that attacking Iraq would not benefit the war on terror? Clarke says yes. I think the current strength of Islamists in Afghanistan support his arguement. If Clarke is wrong, then the Bush Administration simply miscalculated. If Clarke is right, then the Bush Administration knowing endangered the security of the United States.

The core of your comments on every single comment section of the website is that the Bush Administration is our only defense against the terrorists and liberals who will destroy America. If Clarke's statements are correct, heck if only his statements about 9/12 are true, then the Bush Adminstration might be the biggest set of traitors this country has seen.

And if Clarke is telling half-truths, then the Administation should be taking Dan's line that they did good on somethings, and fouled up others. Since they're not - since they're making attacks just like yours - I'm led to believe Clarke might be telling the truth, and the Bush Administration is afraid of the consequences.

Carolina

Tom Holsinger writes: "OTOH, there was much the Clinton administration could have done, but didn't, to nail Bin Laden and cripple Al Qaeda before they obtained their sanctuary in Afghanistan. "

At that time, the extent of the threat wasn't clear, was it? And legal justification might have been tricky prior to the embassy bombings.

Roger is right that there is blame to go all around. But now that there is an election, the Bush Administration is unwilling to accept any blame, and certainly none that reflects on specific individuals.

David Brooks says that the Bushies will never admit to an error, though he argues that they correct their errors in private. He's right about the former. I can't tell about that latter.

“David Thompson writes: "Clarke makes lots of money only if he attacks President Bush. Does anybody disagree? Where am I wrong?"

Do you honestly think a book-length prose blowjob of Bush would not have sold?

Sean Hannity hasn't become a rich man by bashing Bush...”

Sean Hannity is an unabashed conservative. One knows what they are getting when purchasing his book. He already built up a large audience. Richard Clarke, however, is not widely known and claims to present an unbiased and objective look at the war of terrorism. Alas, such a work would find few buyers. I doubt very much that Clarke could even sell 10,000 copies. Only an attack on President Bush puts it on the top ten list. Sixty Minutes apparently gave Richard Clarke two full segments! Come on, does anyone think this would have occurred if Clarke did not strongly criticize the Bush administration?

Props to Carolina! While I might make some of your points a bit differently, your line or argument rings true. The key point in all of this is that that day after 9/11 when Bush's crew sat down to figure out the next move, Rummy said Iraq! Incredible. It's like being punched in the face by Lennox Lewis and saying "let's bomb Madonna."

“The one country in the world that faces nearly daily terrorist attacks is Israel. They've always advocated "eye for an eye" policies. You may disagree, but I rather think that that policy occasionally cause more violences.”

Your example of Israel actually weakens your argument. This country is paying the price for listening to the “voices of Oslo.” Do you want to know what is one of the worst things that ever happened to Israel? That is a real easy question to answer? The Nobel Prize to the childishly immature Shimon Peres, Yitzhak Rabin, and the blood thirsty Yasser Arafat. Israel has more to worry from its goofy political left than perhaps even the terrorists. These idiots encouraged the Israelis to put down their guard.

TexasToast & JonH,

Expertise = judgment as well as knowledge and experience. I don't dispute Clarke's possession of the latter elements, but his judgment is very much in question.

His several known whoppers make me suspicious that there are ones we don't know about yet. He seems to have been the Clinton administration's main man on terror right when "the extent of the threat wasn't clear". Maybe it was clear but Clarke whiffed.

OTOH, JonH is quite correct about the absence of sufficient legal justification prior to the embassy bombings, i.e., just when Al Qaeda was getting out of reach in Afghanistan.

And note that I differentiated between bin Laden and Al Qaeda. Even had the Clinton Administration been able to nail bin Laden, Al Qaeda would have kept going. Crippling the latter was problematic at the time given its ISI support.

dca,

"I think the policy-split point is sound--but remember, the
invasion of Iraq was not presented to the American people as
something to be done as part of this policy, but as a preventive
action against the threat from Iraq--including the strong implication (at a minimum) of a tie between Hussein and AQ."

If you're willing to grant that invading Iraq was a strategic move remake the ME, how can you blame him for hiding the real motive when revealing the strategy would have doomed it?

If you don't think presidents should be able to make strategic decisions in secret & without revealing all his cards, just say so, so that we'll be clear next time a president you support bombs some country without first holding a referrendum that you're a hypocrite.

David Thompson writes: "Sean Hannity is an unabashed conservative. One knows what they are getting when purchasing his book. He already built up a large audience. Richard Clarke, however, is not widely known and claims to present an unbiased and objective look at the war of terrorism. Alas, such a work would find few buyers. I doubt very much that Clarke could even sell 10,000 copies. Only an attack on President Bush puts it on the top ten list. Sixty Minutes apparently gave Richard Clarke two full segments! Come on, does anyone think this would have occurred if Clarke did not strongly criticize the Bush administration? "

Bob Woodward's book, "Bush At War", which was quite favorable to Bush, was covered on 60 Minutes, and spent 14 weeks on the New York Times best seller list.

Sorry, but bashing Bush is not the only way to get a hit book or a spot on 60 minutes.

I thought that Condi Rice's comments about Sept 11 already being in motion when Bush took office were an interesting piece of misdirection.

News reports re Al Qaeda interrogations indicate that the execute command was not issued until July 2001. Making plans to gain the Sept 11 attack capability was one thing --- deciding to actually attack the USA was something else. It would have made sense for Bin Ladin to wait and see how the Bush administration would treat the Islamic world.

1) Bush still has not given the American people a satisfactory explanation for why Sept 11 occurred. His one answer --"they hate our freedom " -- is obvious bullshit. No one attacks the world's most powerful nuclear armed superpower without a strong reason.

2) The American people might have learned the answers from Bin Ladin. But when the US news reported the first Bin Ladin broadcast, Condi Rice went to the CEOs of US TV networks and twisted their arms to halt further Bin Ladin broadcasts.

Her excuse --that Bin Ladin might be sending secret signals in his broadcast --was obvious bullshit to anyone slightly acquainted with spy tradecraft. Since World War II, resistance movements and governments around the world have had the ability to send encrypted messages which cannot be broken --not even by the US National Security Agency. The one time pad encryption is provably unbreakable and easy to use. Since World War II up to today, one can tune into the shortwave band any night and hear strings of random numbers --one time pad encryptions --being broadcast worldwide. Al Qaeda spies in the US might have trouble communicating back to Asia without detection -- although they can go into any library and use public terminals to set up untraceable Hotmail accounts. But Bin Ladin certainly has no trouble sending messages to Al Qaeda --in unbreakable encryption --from protected locations like from Peshwar, Syria, Iran, etc. A shortwave transmitter is about the size of a briefcase, can run off of a car battery, and hence is as mobile as an automobile. Rice's suggestion that Bin Ladin would have depended upon a TV broadcast subject to noise and edited by ABC --when far better means for communication were available --is ludicrous. So why did she mislead us?

3) The answer appeared in an English translation of a Pakistani newspaper --DAWN -- in November 2001. See http://dawn.com/2001/11/10/top1.htm . In an interview ,
Bin Ladin explained:
---------------
" HM: In your statement of Oct 7, you expressed satisfaction over the Sept 11 attacks, although a large number of innocent people perished in them, hundreds among them were Muslims. Can you justify the killing of innocent men in the light of Islamic teachings ?

OBL: This is a major point in jurisprudence. In my view, if an enemy occupies a Muslim territory and uses common people as human shield, then it is permitted to attack that enemy. For instance, if bandits barge into a home and hold a child hostage, then the child's father can attack the bandits and in that attack even the child may get hurt.

America and its allies are massacring us in Palestine, Chechenya, Kashmir and Iraq. The Muslims have the right to attack America in reprisal. The Islamic Shariat says Muslims should not live in the land of the infidel for long. The Sept 11 attacks were not targeted at women and children. The real targets were America's icons of military and economic power.

The Holy Prophet (peace be upon him) was against killing women and children. When he saw a dead woman during a war, he asked why was she killed ? If a child is above 13 and wields a weapon against Muslims, then it is permitted to kill him.

The American people should remember that they pay taxes to their government, they elect their president, their government manufactures arms and gives them to Israel and Israel uses them to massacre Palestinians. The American Congress endorses all government measures and this proves that the entire America is responsible for the atrocities perpetrated against Muslims. The entire America, because they elect the Congress. "

-------------------
4) If you check business journals, you will see the arms sales to Israel to which Bin Ladin was referring. In June 2001, Bush sold Sharon 52 F16s. For the June 20 , 2001 announcement of the F16 sale, go to here :
http://www.defense-aerospace.com/ , click on "Archives", select June 2001 from the list, and then search the resulting page for "Israel" or simply page down to the June 20 entries. )

5) The final approval on the sale was announced a few days before the Sept 11 attack. One reason why our intelligence received no warning of the attack was the seething anger in the Arab world over the F16 sale. See http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/s300179.htm and
An excerpt from http://www.iansa.org/oldsite/news/2001/sep_01/deal_israel.htm
dated September 8,2001:
" The timing the US chose to announce its decision to give Israel the dangerous F-16 jets is really strange. It seems as though the US is telling Israel "Go ahead Sharon! Carry on with the assassination of Palestinian children and the destruction of the houses of peaceful civilians! Proceed with the destruction of the Palestinian defenseless people's infrastructure and with desecrating Islamic sanctities in the holy land!"

The fact this information has been hidden from the American people-- that it has never appeared in the US news media -- shows the lengths to which Likud's supporters will go to mislead Americans.

6) Bush's sale of the F16s occurred at a time when Sharon was being criticized around the world for attacking the Palestinians with the F16s. Even the US State Department protested Sharon's actions until the Bush White House ordered it to stop.
See http://www.clw.org/cat/newswire/nw060601.html#State ,
http://www.clw.org/cat/newswire/nw061301.html#Rep,

The most casual Internet search will also show that Bin Ladin gave a series of interviews to US TV networks in 1998 and that he repeatedly cited US support of Israel's attacks on the Palestinians as one of three main reasons for an Islamic Jihad against the US. See
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/binladen/who/interview.html

7) The arms sales was not necessary for Israel's security nor was it in the US national interest. It occurred for two reasons:
(a) Defense Contractor Lockheed Martin received $2.3 billion for the F16s. Lockheed had donated roughly $2 million --most of it to the Republicans. Plus Dick Cheney's wife, Lynne Cheney, had been on Lockheed's Board of Directors since 1994 until the Jan 2001 inaugural. Plus, (b) Of the five largest campaign donors in the US, two are Israelis --Haim Saban and Davidi Gilo. Haim Saban alone donated roughly $12 million in the 2002 election cycle. Bush knows that the major financiers of the Democratic Party are strong supporters of Israeli --that if he can court their support , he not only can strength his position but also cripple the Democrats. See
http://www.opensecrets.org/news/pro-israel.pro-arab/index.asp , http://www.sptimes.com/2002/06/30/Columns/Jewish_voters_noticin.shtml

8) Iraq was not a credible threat to the continental United States. Hussein was, however, seen as a threat by Sharon.
After Haim Saban's endowed program at the Brookings Institute --founded to "advise" US officials on Middle Eastern policy -- indicated that taking out Hussein would be a good idea, Bush invaded Iraq. If Bush's pandering -- and the right wings fevered ranting to support it -- seems irrational, then realize that the country is evenly divided and any advantage that can be gained by Bush will be eagerly seized. Personally, I can't understand how Bush can hold Todd Beamer's sobbing widow and then continue with such games --but politics takes a strong stomach.

9) Plus there are other players. Lockheed's arms sales to the Middle East has already been mentiond. Plus Big Oil's fingerprints are all over Bush's foreign policy.

I would note that (a) Dick Cheney was on Kazakhstan's oil advisory board during his tenure at Halliburton in the 1990s and was heavily involved in Houston's attempts to gain access to the huge oil deposits discovered in the Caspian Sea . See, e.g., http://businessjournal.net/stories/061398/ABJ_pays.html , http://www.gasandoil.com/goc/news/ntc33236.htm, http://www.kazakhembus.com/Cheney_aims.html ,

The Bush diatribes against Hussein are hilarious when you look at the oil dictatorships he is cozing up to in Central Asia.

Currently, the Bush administration is using the "War on Terror" as a front for building several military bases in Central Asia (see http://www.inthesetimes.com/issue/26/11/feature2.shtml )
Those bases , paid for by the US taxpayer, will allow Bush and Dick Cheney to protect Houston's billion dollar investments in the Caspian Sea oil deposits.

Note there is another important benefit to Israel from Bush's invasion of Iraq -- access to the water of the Euphrates River. See
http://www.mfa.gov.tr/grupa/percept/i2/i2-6.htm
and http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3ad5556645bc.htm . Hussein would have made a forceful push for Iraq's riparian rights.

“Bob Woodward's book, "Bush At War", which was quite favorable to Bush, was covered on 60 Minutes, and spent 14 weeks on the New York Times best seller list.

Sorry, but bashing Bush is not the only way to get a hit book or a spot on 60 minutes.”

Bob Wooward is a very famous journalist. A publisher can take it for granted that they will likely earn money on his books. This is definitely not the case with an unknown entity like Richard Clarke. The latter gentleman, from a marketing perspective, had to attract some attention.

David Thompson writes: Bob Wooward is a very famous journalist. A publisher can take it for granted that they will likely earn money on his books. This is definitely not the case with an unknown entity like Richard Clarke. The latter gentleman, from a marketing perspective, had to attract some attention."

Had Clarke written a book that was favorable to Bush, or neutral, he probably would have gotten a lot of play anyway, especially on the conservative media. They'd be all over an inside look into the pre-9/11 anti-terror efforts.

Rather, had the Bush administration performed in a way that merited a favorable or neutral treatment. It's pretty clear that Clarke's just reporting how it went. Someone who stays in the NSC from Reagan to Bush 2 isn't going to be the sort of person who says things in public that can easily be refuted.

Is there any source, any person, any piece of information that could persuade the defenders of the Bush administration that he bears the slightest responsibility for 9/11 or has mismanaged the war on terrorism since the focus shifted to Iraq in the fall of 2002?

That is the question I have to all these people attacking Richard Clarke. Sure there are holes you could punch in his story. But really who the hell cares if Clinton could have done more to fight Al Qaeda? When he did attack Al Qaeda all he faced was opposition from the GOP.

Imagine what the outrage would be from the defenders of Bush would be if Clinton had taken every action Bush has and then these allegations came out. They would have him impeached in seconds and calls for his head on a platter would be deafening.

The defenders of Bush show no inclination to engage with the pluses and minues of the entire battle against terror, from January 2001 through today. As far as they are concerned everything is either Clinton's fault or the BEST possible thing that could have been done. When faced with a crisis our nation needs a leader who is more interested in defeating our enemies and learning from mistakes than working every angle of the war against terror for political advantage.

I am voting for John Kerry for a wide variety of reasons, but high on that list is that I believe he will make our nation and the world safer than George Bush.

Carolina,

You reminded me of a former client when you said,

"1. Did the Bush Administration ignore a credible terrorist threat before 9/11/2001? Clarke's consistent story is that they did. The fact he is independently backed by other people involved in counter-terrorism supports his statement"

given Daniel Drezner's statement in the opening text:

"It's worth remembering that every new administration needs about six months to work out the foreign policy kinks -- flash back to the Clinton team's firxt six months if you think this is a recent problem. To claim that they were slow to move on Al Qaeda misses the point -- unless it was a campaign issue, every new administration is slow to move on every policy dimension."

That was the only time I've ever been sued for malpractice. My insurance defense counsel told me I was doomed when I agreed to represent the guy - I was the 7th attorney he had consulted. All of the others had turned him down due to well-tuned instincts about trouble which I lacked that early in my career.

One of the charges against me was that I hadn't closed escrow fast enough on the business sale. Plaintiff's counsel dropped that when he learned how fast I had moved. Of course he wasn't working on a contingency - my former client had paid him a $40,000 retainer.

It was fun, though, watching him get into arguments with plaintiff at depositions, especially when he told my erstwhile (and his new) client that I had correctly advised him of the law.

When we agreed to binding arbitration, I offered to use plaintiff's expert witness as the arbitrator. Plaintiff's counsel didn't like that. Then, when he, my attorney and I were fishing in our pockets for change to operate the courthouse hallway copier for the arbitration agreement, plaintiff's counsel suddenly looked up and said:

"Not here. My client is watching."

DT,

I didn't say I agreed with Oslo (if you ask me it was a disaster). I just said that sometimes an eye for an eye doesn't work because it causes more harm then good. I just heard on the radio that Hamas decided to pull out all the stops- proving my my point about reacting to force, rather than reacting to appeasement. My guess is that more Palestinians (who did not take up arms against Israel before) will join Hamas. We can decide in a week or so, if I was right.

And I worry more about Hamas then I do about the Israeli left. Mainly 'cause Israeli left will just talk at me but Hamas would kill me. You live in a strange world if words are more deadly then bullets.

Last and not least, the Israelis would take offense at your suggesting they "put down their guard" due to Oslo. Last time I checked, the only time Israel let anyone walk all over them was the 1991 Gulf War.

All of which, by the way, has nothing to do with my post's main point: the Bush Administration's and their supporters refuse to answer honestly and clearly any questions about the fallibility of Administration policies.

So, rather than writing a misleading response to my post, why don't you address my argument?

I'm starting to see a pattern here....
Carolina

Is there any source, any person, any piece of information that could persuade the defenders of the Bush administration that he bears the slightest responsibility for 9/11 or has mismanaged the war on terrorism since the focus shifted to Iraq in the fall of 2002?

Of course! It's just not been produced yet.

When he did attack Al Qaeda all he faced was opposition from the GOP.

Oh, come on. The very morning he's suppsoed to testify he decides to boimb an asprin factory and claim it's AQ?

Bush and his administration are incompetent. They have a strong tendency to try to do the wrong things, and they also screw up things that they do try to do so that even stuff that might have been the right thing to do turns out wrong. This should be pretty clear to anyone who pays attention to their actions, regardless of politics. It is blindingly obvious by now. A lot of the stuff Clarke is saying just gives more creedence to that.

Clinton screwed up on terror. But by the end of his administration his people understood that and went out of their way to give the incoming Bushies a big loud warning of what was happening. But the Bushies ignored it to focus on their top defense priority..."Star Wars" missile defense! There's blame to go around, but this is just one example among many of Bush's incompetence.

Also: David Thomson says on Oslo: "Israel has more to worry from its goofy political left than perhaps even the terrorists. These idiots encouraged the Israelis to put down their guard.

Have you noticed that many more Israeli civilians have died under Sharon than under the previous two administrations? More Israeli civilians are dying every year now than died over the whole Oslo period.

The reason's rather simple; Give the lion some food and he won't eat you... for a while.

I wonder if Clinton might have taken care of Bin Ladin if Clinton had not been distracted for several years by a vengeful Republican campaign based on whether Clinton had been unfaithful to Hillary. Only the second impeachment in 210 years of US history.

Maybe the Rehnquist Court would like to rethink it's decision on whether a Commander-in-Chief and defender of the nation should be distracted by lawsuits funded by political enemies like Richard Mellon Scaife?

Plus let's not forget the $70 million multi-year Ken Starr Whitewater investigation --which found Clinton guilty of what exactly?

Tom

Hmmm

I thought Clarke's point was not the speed, but the emphisis and the direction. Iraq instaed of AQ.

As to whoppers, I'd bet that the Bush folks have fact checkers pouring over that book. If they find one, we'll read about it in 24 point type.

Tom,

Like Dan, I understand that setting up a foreign policy team takes time. Bush was not savy on Foriegn Policy, but he bought in a Cabinet of people who should have told him what were our Foriegn Policy concerns. Likewise, his NSA should have told him where the threats to American security lay. Clarke says there was a consistent downgrading of terrorism as a threat to national security by the US government in the first 7 months of the Bush Adminstration. Is that Bush's fault? Maybe not, but it certainly is Condolezza Rice's. It was her job to detemine those threats and advise the president on them.

Unlike your client, I realize that professionals don't always get it right. Maybe Connie missed the boat because her bugaboo was the PRC and Russia. But I would expect my lawyer, and my President to look after my interests. You looked after your client's interest, even when he wasn't being rational.

The President of the United States has a responsibility to protect us to the best of his ability. Clarke's, William Slaten's, Fred Kaplan's, and George Tenet's comments about the Bush Administration suggest they aren't looking after our primary interest.

I'm not angry with the Bush administration's inabilty to predict 9/11 to the hour and the day. What infuriates me is how they responded to it.

Carolina

After reading numerous left/liberal leaning blogs' takes on this whole Clark affair, it was good to get the other side's perspective from Dan, and the posted comments. As some of the comments have already reasonably pointed out, pre-9/11 nobody was doing a particularly phenomenal job on dealing with Al Qaeda. Dan makes the good point that "every new administration needs about six months to work out the foreign policy kinks." Along those lines one would conclude that the first 6-8 months of a new administration should be a time of intense focus and activity to get the administration up and running. So why is it that between his inauguration and September 3, 2001, 42% of Bush's time was spent at vacation spots or enroute, including, in August, the longest presidential vacation in 32 years?

Some of the posted comments also are making much of Clark's 'whoppers' in his years before the current Bush presidency. George W. has been touted as a great manager, but only an idiot would hire someone who already has a track record proving his incompetence. I'm confused. Is George W. an idiot?

On the substance, as they say in government, I listen with a sense of resigned discouragement to Bush and Clinton administration officials -- who pursued essentially identical policies toward al Qaeda prior to 9/11 -- all making similar statements about how they did everything they could and 9/11 was not in any way their fault. Despite the Clintonites disdain for the Bushies and the Bushies loathing of the Clintonites these are basically the same kind of people.

So let's do what they would do and forget about the substance for a minute. Let's talk about the politics! Does it strike anyone else as odd that the Bush administration seems completely surprised by Clarke's criticism? Surprise is the best explanation I can think of for the breakdown in message discipline that has administration spokespeople from the Vice President on down issuing statements that contradict each other in the process of trying to contradict Clarke. This can't bode well for the campaign -- you want to have Presidential surrogates fire back quickly at critics, but they have to be on the same page of the old songbook.

What if this happens again? Clarke won't be the last source of unexpected criticism of this President. The 9/11 commission has yet to issue its final report, and the commission on prewar Iraq intelligence hasn't even met yet. Suppose Henry Kissinger gives a speech somewhere alleging similarities between Don Rumsfeld's mucking around in foreign policy now and his doing the same thing during Ford's administration almost 30 years ago. Ford was crippled politically then, and Bush now is....

The point is that a campaign can't keep going into panic mode and expect to retain voter confidence in its candidate. Bush's people had to know Clarke was writing a book -- what did they think he was going to talk about, the food in the White House mess? Yet faced with his criticism they just explode in several different directions. As opposed, say, to praising Clarke's service and holding off for a couple of days to coordinate their response to his specific charges.

You have to wonder: George Bush's administration has been just as focused on campaign politics as Bill Clinton's was. Clinton, though, was really good at it, whatever his other flaws. Bush doesn't seem to be, and neither do the people he has working for him. I mean, more than three years of focus, of positioning and fundraising and all the rest, and this is how the Bush campaign reacts to the first big bump in its road?

Hi,

Read Dan Darling's blog on this (Winds of Change)http://windsofchange.net/archives/004747.php.

It doesn't really speak directly to Clarke's charges, but it does make some interesting points about Clarke and the Iraq - Al Qaeda connection.

Clarke was part of the Clinton administration fight against Al Qaeda. He was also part of the planning in the 1998 missile strike against the al-Shifa plant in the Sudan.

The indictiment used to justify the missile strike is here:
http://usinfo.state.gov/topical/pol/terror/98110402.htm

Notice that Iraq is mentioned as well: "In addition, al Qaeda reached an understanding with the Government of Iraq that al Qaeda would not work against that government and that on particular projects, specifically including weapons development, al Qaeda would work cooperatively with the Government of Iraq,"

Notice that this is 1998, well before Bush and Gulf War II. This clearly states that the Clinton administration suspected Iraqi / Al Qaeda collaboration. They suspected enough to send cruise missiles to destroy this plant.

Here's another interesting tidbit:

Clarke did provide new information in defense of Clinton's decision to fire Tomahawk cruise missiles at the El Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum, Sudan, in retaliation for bin Laden's role in the Aug. 7 embassy bombings. While U.S. intelligence officials disclosed shortly after the missile attack that they had obtained a soil sample from the El Shifa site that contained a precursor of VX nerve gas, Clarke said that the U.S. government is "sure" that Iraqi nerve gas experts actually produced a powdered VX-like substance at the plant that, when mixed with bleach and water, would have become fully active VX nerve gas.
Clarke said U.S. intelligence does not know how much of the substance was produced at El Shifa or what happened to it. But he said that intelligence exists linking bin Laden to El Shifa's current and past operators, the Iraqi nerve gas experts and the National Islamic Front in Sudan.

Given the evidence presented to the White House before the airstrike, Clarke said, the president "would have been derelict in his duties if he didn't blow up the facility."

Clarke said the U.S. does not believe that bin Laden has been able to acquire chemical agents, biological toxins or nuclear weapons. If evidence of such an acquisition existed, he said, "we would be in the process of doing something."

(Excerpted from "Embassy Attacks Thwarted, U.S. Says; Official Cites Gains Against Bin Laden; Clinton Seeks $10 Billion to Fight Terrorism," Vernon Loeb, Washington Post, A02, January 23, 1999.)

Bithead,

Bush has screwed up bigtime both in terms of defense and offense in the war on terror.

He kept FBI Director Freeh and CIA Director Tenet on after 9/11. The FBI remains in charge of domestic counter-terrorism. He let the FBI pretend that the anthrax attacks were domestic in origin.

Bush let the military effectively ignore Iraqi WMD during the immediate post-conquest phase, so Al Qaeda operatives could drag off whatever stocks remained after Saddam's regime implemented the xSoviet cleanup plan - the truck convoys going to Syria in Jan. - Feb. 2003 (which I called at the time). The few military WMD search teams in operation during the immediate post-conquest period were small in number, hastily organized, lacked expertise and equipment, and had little backup. One of the teams was basically dominated by NY Times reporter Judith Miller, who is very knowledgeable but not a scientist.

TexasToast,

It is unlikely that Clarke would be candid about his mistakes in his book, particularly those he still doesn't understand. Spectacularly bad judgment entails considerable blindness and self-deception.

Carolina,

Bear my comment in mind about instances of really bad judgment effecting credibility.

Damn free speech when it clouds threads with total nonsense.

To Rich: You're onto one thing about fighting terrorism and it doesn't matter what party occupies the Oval Office. What is the fundamental flaw in our Democracy is the quest for power by national Parties who say they have America's interests at heart yet realistically could care less what is good for America so long as it is good for themselves or their party.

Yes, had Clinton revoked the Taliban government's lease on Afghanistan he would have faced attacks like "No war for Monica". It's sick, disgusting and what calls EVERY AMERICAN to stick up for their President when Americans are attacked because they are Americans. President Clinton had every right to destroy Bin Laden in the Sudan and in Afghanistan, but the fact of the matter is, unlike Clarke, Clinton had political matters to consider both domestic and abroad.

As Tom has provided for readers, the case of Pakistan is ultimately the obstructor in removing Al Qaida from Afghanistan. The Taliban was somewhat of a problem for the US as human rights groups, especially the woman's rights ones, weren't especially pleased with the Taliban's abuse of women and the non-muslims. The HR record of the Taliban was very poor, but like the citation "But But North Korea has nukes, why don't we invade them?" we too have the "the Taliban are bad, but there's lots of 'Talibans' in the world" arguments. It's been reported that the Saudis were close to making a deal to extract Bin Laden from Afghanistan in 1998 before the embassy bombings. The Saudis wanted him in Arabia so they could put him in jail for advocating the removal of the House of Saud. It was in the end the Sauids that convinced the Sudan to evict Bin Laden with US pressure.

The Taliban however changed their position on extradicting Bin Laden to Arabia after the Embassy bombings in 98 and the subsequent cruise missle strikes in Afghanistan. Mullah Omar was leaning on ending the Al Qaida relationship until those cruise missle strikes.

In addition to Al Qaida in Afghanistan there was also the real issue of Pakistani opposition to not including them in the loop of every foreign policy decision with Afghanistan. The Taliban were the ISI's only success and Pakistan wanted to keep a proxy state to export their jihad industry that was unwelcome inside Pakistan. The other big problem with Pakistan was the history of relations with the United States and the nuclear tests in 98. Not only did the US have to attempt to go through Pakistan to get to the Taliban, but now it had to consider a Nuclear Pakistan as well. In any case, the Pak Nuke program sort of upped the risk assessment of fucking with Afghanistan without the proper lackeys.

To Carl: "The fact is that an invasion was not politically possible before 9/11, no matter how much they wanted to go in."

Is anyone conceding that the removal of the Taliban government by US troops was possible before 9/11? I think you really miss the point of the role of politics in foreign policy decisions which is exactly the weakness of Richard Clarke.

Clarke was good on the analysis side. Working with FBI Agent John Oneill the two were quite good at communicating with other governments to hunt down those responsible for terrorist attacks. Other men and women with jobs like Clarke's and Oneill's were willing to cooperate from Pakistan, France, Jordan, Yemen, etc. The conflict was at the executive levels of each government. Those that had to bear responsibility for the decisions to remove a government or attack a multinational terrorist group that has welcome refuge from the host government in the mountains of your country where few people even go had many more outcomes to predict and address than terrorist investigators presenting difficult policy recommendations.

To Carolina: Are you aware at all about the story of the Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's indentity? Are you aware of the nation where terrorist flee for refuge after their attacks? Both of these questions point the finger at Iraqi intelligence apparently doing the leg work to help anyone that wants to attack the United States. If you want to know more just ask, but if you wish to maintain the present ignorant talking points of the Center for American Progress than I digress.

To All: Does anyone else agree with me that the main issue on terrorism and how to fight it is a null option if blaming Presidents is more important than seeking justice for the family members of the victims of terror? We spend way too much time fighting about the alleged motivations of our leaders when its clear that fighting terrorism is a priority that cannot afford to divide the country in half.

I recommend reading the book on this divide from Jean Francois Revel.
Amazon link

There's one thing I am sure of and that is the terrorist are not counting on defeating the United States, but are counting on the United States defeating itself. Cold War analogies apply to the WoT but the variables are a little bit different, specifically the role of the Arab media trump card.

Tom: Louis Freeh was gone before 9/11. Robert Mueller took over on 9/4/2001.

Another thing on Louis Freeh.

He states that one of the problems he faced while FBI director was stalling, inaction and denial of requests by the Attorney General on matters of investigations overseas, seeking the full cooperation of the executive branch and in having AG Reno deny most recommendations as she determined they were "not legal". One of those recommendations was going into Afghanistan.

But even that decision was somewhat based on history of trying to investigate in Afghanistan. The Pakistani government had to have their arm twisted by the American government to allow the FBI to investigate the downing the C-130 that killed American Ambassador to Pakistan Arnold Raphael along with officers of the United States military. The Bhutto family was a rarely a friendly government to the United States in Pakistan which is one of the reasons why I think the US has supported Musharraf. Subtract Musharraf and you have Benazir Bhutto or maybe even an Islamist leader shaking hands with Ali Shah Gilani.

Good post, but it's worth pointing out precisely how unfair Frum is to Clarke; the "either man-hunt or ideas" dichotomy is weak. I don't think that anyone (who is serious) really believes that ideas are not important. The real divide is over those who believe that the war on Iraq has helped to advance democratic ideas and favorable views of the U.S., and those who are not so sure. Stated that way, I'm definitely in the latter camp.

Brennan:
"Are you aware at all about the story of the Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's indentity? Are you aware of the nation where terrorist flee for refuge after their attacks? Both of these questions point the finger at Iraqi intelligence apparently doing the leg work to help anyone that wants to attack the United States. If you want to know more just ask."
All right, I'm asking. Because if you know something definitively connecting Iraqi intelligence with Al Qaeda, that would be news to me (I'm one of those unfortunates who are dependent on the ignorant talking points of the Center for American Progress).

Carolina, You ask a number of questions in your post. I will take them one at a time.
You think Israel will be less safe because of its policy of assassinating the terrorist leadership. How could they be any less safe? Hamas is admits direct responsibility for hundreds of deaths and thousands of injuries. Should they take no action in response? Maybe they should gather the suicide bomber's body parts and send them off to the ICC.

I don't think Kerry would be another Chamberlain. This role, as we all know, should and will be filled by a European. We just don't know whether it will be a Frenchman, German or Spainiard. The reaction against Kerry is perhaps more correctly directed to his party and the advisors he would return to power. This crowd saw America attacked throughout the 1990s and responded militarily one time, a cruise missile barrage on one day. Which, by the way, weakened Al Qaeda not one bit. No effort was made to bankrupt the terrorists either. I don't think they were appeasers, just incompetent.

Kerry is clearly on the record opposing many of the major weapons systems we now use. to say otherwise is disingenous in the extreme. Your phrasing "intelligent increases to our defense budget" can't give cover to the Senator's many votes against missile defense, the M1A1 tank, the F14, F15 etc. as well as his votes against intelligence budgets.
Does demeaning Kerry defend Bush? No, but in November we will have to choose one of these two men to be President and both of their positions on terror have to be examined. One says it is a war, the other says it is exaggerated and really a law enforcement issue. The electorate will decide who is correct here.

Now as to Clarke, I haven't read the book and might assume that you haven't either as it just hit the stands, but I have read the excerpts in the news and have seen him on the Charlie Rose show. As to your last four questions:
1.From the testimony of Bush officials today at the 9/11 commision, I don't believe this administration ignored AQ. It may fairly be said they did not give it the urgency Clarke wanted, but they were aware and formulating a strategic plan that, in sad irony, was accepted on 9/10. Did they react to chatter prior to 9/11? Yes, but it apparently referred to overseas threats. Could they have taken any action that would have thwarted 9/11? As most of the hijackers were in the country by mid year, probably not. Should stronger intelligence sharing have been in effect? Certainly, but shouldn't the man who was the anti-terrorism czar for the last eight years,Mr. Clarke, have been the driving force in making sure this took place?
2. Did the administration want to go to war in Iraq? They certainly wanted regime change as did the Clinton administration and the Congress which made it national policy in 1998. Was 9/11 an excuse to attack Iraq? It's hard to know if Iraq would have happened in quite the same way without 9/11. But the direct result of 9/11 was the end of the Taliban and the AQ sanctuaries in Afghanistan. That was first and foremost. Was Iraq inevitable? Bush spent the early days of his administration trying to get "Smart Sanctions" through the UN. One of the efforts just before the war began was also to allow Saddam to go into exile. So a case can be made that war wasn't the only option that was pursued. Was Clarke fired for not being on message? His letter of resignation, released today, is glowing in its praise of Bush. Does someone who was fired also resign? I think not.
3. These are straw men. Bush has said the opposite of some of the assertions. Please show the world where he said Saddam was responsible for 9/11. He said the reverse. I would be interested to see if you could find legitimate citations where he said otherwise. As to being a clear and present danger, Iraq was an enemy of this country, his own people and Iraq's neighbors. To say otherwise is to ignore history. The more common error is the "imminent danger" assertion which, to your credit, you do not make. Bush made the argument that, with WMD, we cannot wait until danger is imminent, a somewhat different emphasis, but one that is often misunderstood. Could you provide legitimate references to the claim that we funded Bin Laden against Iraq in 1991 as well as to your claims that the administration says that Saddam funded AQ? Your post is the first time I have seen either of these charges. But I do believe Saddam regularly allowed AQ operatives to transit Iraq as well as recieve medical care there. His support of Palestinian terror groups is, as you say, well known and substantial. So, the fundmental argument is as the Bush administration correctly puts it, Saddam funded terror. Whether he funded AQ as well, doesn't change the fact that he is responsible for death and destabilization outside his own border. By the way, he wasn't a socialist, he was a murderous tyrant who caused hundreds of thousands of deaths and sponsored told and untold horrors over the last thirty years.
4. You imply something you cannot prove. Your imputation is that the Bush policy on Iraq is a fraud known to those who craft it. The clear, oft stated position of the administration is that to create a democratic state i