Dan,

Nice try, but you're overlooking the crucial difference in how the two administrations responded to serious spikes in the threat level. In 1999, the Clinton national security team met daily and shook that damn unresponsive bureaucratic tree. And guess what? They uncovered the Millennium Plot. But in 2001, the Bush administration sat on their hands (well, actually, by August they were using their hands to clear brush in Crawford, Texas), postponed meetings, issued a few warnings, and kept planning for national missile defense. Meanwhile, a bunch of the 9/11 hijackers entered or re-entered the country during the spring and early summer. Yeah, Dan, there was a lot of similarity in the two administrations' approaches to terrorism before 9/11. And, yeah, both were inadequate. But it's pretty obvious that the government's approach to terrorism/Al Qaida become EVEN MORE INADEQUATE once Bush slouched into office. Sure, many or most of the same policies were in place. But the IMPLEMENTATION of those policies was very different. The Clinton administration acted in 1999 during a major threat spike. During an even more heightened threat spike in 2001, the Bush administration did nothing.

The idea that alert Clintonites averted the Millenium plot bombing of LAX is silly. They had no evidence that it was going to occur, and no warning that the bomber was planning to cross where he did. It was blind dumb luck that an alert border patrolman found the explosives. The arrest of the "20th hijacker" prior to 9/11 suggests the same stroke of luck could have happened if the breaks had gone differently. But a palpably gun-shy FBI wouldn't follow up because the were afraid they'd be mau-maued for profiling--by many of the same people now criticizing Bush, btw.

Clarke says he had several meetings with the FBI, customs, airline security, and others the summer before 9/11. So Presumably the domestic security apparatus was alerted. Chatter had peaked in the summer and dropped off somewhat by 9/11.

The terror camps metastatized in the late 90's. It was simply a matter of when, not whether, al Qaeda would pull off some spectacular that would kill a lot of Americans. Domestic security can get lucky or good three or four or five times straight, but eventually al Qaeda would pull something off.

In the end, I think democracies are fundamentally incapable of recognizing and coping with fast-emerging threats. Al Qaeda popped up on the radar in the mid-90s or so; by '98 they were ensconsed in Afghanistan (after an abortive attempt at Sudan). By 2000 they had become rather sophisticated and quasi-state actors. In an ideal world the US would have recognized the threat sometime around the African embassy bombings, but decisive action would have required more military force than most presidents would be willing to undertake on their own authority. And congress would have lacked the demonstrated need to approve force on the scale necessary.

I think it's interesting to consider that, in the first 8 months of his presidency, Bush did take swift, decisive action against the threat of the Teamsters and other unions.

Oh, and tee-ball. He did that, too.

"For all his harsh complaints about Bush administration's lack of urgency in regard to terrorism, he had no serious quarrel with the actual policy Bush was pursuing before the 2001 attacks."

This rather understates the point that policy is nice and all, but it doesn't really help much against imminent threats. The Bushies sat on their hands for eight months, while their deputies spent some time debating how many terrorists can dance on the head of a pin.

Bush's ENACTED policy for the first 8 months of his term WAS TO DO NOTHING.

Giving credit to the Clinton administration for foiling the LAX bombing is as absurd as giving the government of the Philippines credit for discovering the Bojinka plot. The former was only discovered thanks to a jumpy terrorist and a customs agent who, unlike most of his peers, actually did his job. The latter thanks to an idiot terrorist igniting chemicals in a sink bringing his landlady to investigate. Neither were due to the astuteness of bureaucrats and functionaries in any government office.

I was buying into Clarke until he laid that turd. But then again, thanks to the Bojinka and Paris plots, I can't really believe Condi Rice either when she claims "airplane as missile" was inconceivable. Honestly it'd be refreshing if both of them just came out and admitted they each have axes to grind and asses to cover and that they were counting on the ignorance of the public to lend themselves credibility. Probably never happen but then again even Norman Mailer did do a mea culpa after his pet convict killed a waiter in NYC so anything is possible.

polyphemus wrote:

"Giving credit to the Clinton administration for foiling the LAX bombing is as absurd as giving the government of the Philippines credit for discovering the Bojinka plot. "

In his testimony, Clarke says about the millenium plots:

http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0403/24/bn.00.html

"I thought, however, that it might well take place in the United States based on what we had learned in December '99, when we rolled up operations in Washington state, in Brooklyn, in Boston. "

He doesn't specifically mention LAX or Los Angeles.

I'm not sure what the operations were in Brooklyn and in Boston, but I don't think they were the LAX plot. I'm not even sure if he's talking about the LAX plot being foiled in mentioning "Washington state," but even giving you benefit of the doubt that it was the actions of the customs agent he's referring to there, he mentions two far distant cities in the eastern US where plots were "rolled up."

So, even if you discard the "washington state" part of his testimony (not sure that's warranted), you have two other places/plots he says were indeed rolled up.

As opposed to Bush being briefed daily and doing nothing.

Was the person caught in Dec 1999 by the customs agent used to help tease apart another plot? Not sure. Was Moussaoui used to tease apart a plot? No.

K

Re: "So it's hard to see how anything would have changed unless the Bush team had focused on Al Qaeda to the exclusion of all other foreign policy priorities, which no one, not even Clarke, was suggesting at the time."

Just like laws, policies are nothing more than words on papers unless they are acted upon. Clarke's claim is that as the problem grew in urgency the Bush administration let the policy molder. The administration's claim, as best I can tell, is that this was not so; that actions continued to be taken at the same time as the policy itself came under review; and that Clarke was either unaware of these actions (because he was "out of the loop" -- Cheney; or because he didn't attend meetings -- Rice) or is deliberately lying about what took place.

Unless Rice testifies under oath, this will remain a matter of he said/she said. Thus a larger, even more serious question needs to be addressed: Is the expansion of executive power inherent in the Bush administration's refusal to allow Rice to testify under oath something We the People want to grant this or any other president?

We must move beyond partisan tendencies in answering this question, and the best way to do this is to imagine someone you abhor in the White House. Would you then want a doctrine of executive privilege so unassailable as to render our constitutional system of checks and balances meaningless?

Everything started with Ahmed Ressam and the LAX plot. The investigations into the Space Needle, Boston and the Algerian Brooklyn cell began AFTER Ressam was arrested. So when someone(like the initial poster) says "the Millenium Plot" they mean LAX. It was the fountainhead from which all the information came. And, yes, it's entirely disingenuous for Clarke to claim that year was a successful one. They blundered into it and got lucky from the bottom up not the other way around.

Comparing Ressam to Moussaoui is specious at best. One had a trunk full of explosives and the other had a bad accent and a laptop. Reasonable people could disagree about Mousaoui's background and intentions and they did(both in D.C. and Paris) before 9/11 hindsight kicked in. Kind of hard to ignore a blabbing Algerian sitting on a keg of boom-boom.

But the only point that matters is that all of the things Clarke takes credit for in 1999 resulted from a chance arrest of Ressam.

PS--I'm assuming Clarke wouldn't include the Jordanian cell in 1999 since it was proven that the explosives there came from Iraq. And, well, we know Clarke's feelings about that connection. And also that would require Clarke to admit they had a link between Ressam, Hijazi and atleast two 9/11 hijackers in early 2000. What a tangled web....

The simple truth of this matter is that Mr. Clarke is a pervert - as he amply demonstrated on MTP this past weekend.

He made it clear that he believes that our retaliation against global Islamic fascism only made matters worse. Now, he meant Iraq, but wouldn't what he believes be equally true had we only engaged Afghanistan? Of course it would. But, as I say, he is a pervert. Because the (il)logical pathway of his though process holds that being destroyed was all part of the Taliban's game-plan, And that we 'played right into their hands'.

I believe that's how he put it to Mr. Russert.

Yeah, That's right , Dick, I went a little something like this:

Abdul: The American's are coming.
Malik: Perfect, First they'll bomb us into oblivion, then they'll liberate the country, installing a constitutional republic.
Abdul: The Fools!
Malik: Bwah-hah-ha

That's right, Jon H, your boy believes that our response(finally)to their attacks only served to make matters worse.

The Millenium plots and the LAX bomb attempt are linked. But the handling/uncovering of the Millenium plots and the LAX bomb attempt are exclusive. Intelligence discovered the Millenium plotting. An alert border agent discovered Ressam. The end result of the latter neither proves nor disproves the former.

Similarly, Moussaoui's capture was the work of alert flight school instructors and FBI agents in Mpls. Only FBI D.C. bureaucrats argued about it.

Clarke doesn't seem to focus his criticism over specific policy as much as he does on the Bush Admin's attitude towards setting policy priorites.

“The result is that what's in Against all Enemies is certainly the truth, but as I said before, I doubt it's the whole truth.” -DD

Thank you professor – I have been waiting for someone on this board to say that. Instead, we have seen a long stream of posts about Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them. I think its rather telling that the WH has been changing its story on the facts in the last week, while Mr. Clarke has remained disarmingly consistent. By the “whole truth”, I assume you mean Mr. Clarke’s interpretation of the facts he presents. It is here that we can have legitimate substantive disagreement – i.e., ok, these things happened, what do they mean?

To get to the merits of your argument, I think its obvious that every witness has biases, and Mr. Clarke’s are apparent to any reader. He does paint himself as Jack Ryan, and I’ll bet the movie rights to his 9/11 story are a hot property. He also weakens his argument by, in my view unfairly, contrasting the Clinton response and the Bush team response pre 9/11 when both teams’ policies were essentially the same. He has a right to his opinions about focus, but the objective policy results don’t look very different.

This does highlight a reason, however, for the WH’s over-the-top attacks on Mr. Clarke and his book. The Bush campaign has claimed and does claim SPECIAL competence in the WOT and has made that SPECIAL competence a major theme of its campaign. If their policy pre 9/11 is just a warmed over Clinton policy, where is the special competence? No one has answered that.

In this regard, it’s my understanding that Mr. Holbrooke is the top candidate for a Sec of State position in a Kerry administration. You cite him as an example of foreign policy authority and competence vis-à-vis Mr. Clarke. Do the Bush folks have a special competence that Mr. Holbrooke does not have?

You don’t address what I consider the more important of Clarke’s charges (the post 9/11 policy) here, so I’ll leave that for another thread. It looks to me, though, that the growing consensus that the pre-9/11 policies of both administrations failed to solve the problem of terrorism is correct, and we should now look to a debate going forward. Is the Bush post-9/11 counterterrorism strategy the best one, and what are the alternatives to that strategy?

Amplifying (I hope) TexasToast's comment, it's striking that the discussion here (and pretty much everywhere else) focuses on the inflammatory issue of whether the 9/11 attacks could have been prevented. Neither that, nor the differences between Bush and Clinton regarding anti-terrorism policy and implementation of that policy, were sufficient to get the rabidly anti-terrorist Clarke to resign.

What did get him to resign was Iraq. It seems he doesn't mind overthrowing Saddam, but he does mind that this action (1) diverted resources from more important anti-terrorist activities, and (2) has been a recruiting bonanza for Islamic terrorists. Tommy G is either smoking very interesting material or quite disingenuous when he suggests that invading a country that had little or no connection to al Qaeda wouldn't inflame Arab and Islamist opinion. In fact, I wonder if it wasn't calculated to do so...

1) Has it occurred to anyone that Holbrooke might be the liar -- at least as regards what was driving the Bosnia intervention? That he , like most in positions of power in Washington, is a whore who conceals, misdirects, and misleads rather than someone who tells the full truth to the American people?

2) How about this quote of Clinton Energy Secretary Bill Richardson --spoken "a few months prior to the 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia":
---------
""This is about America's energy security. It's also about preventing strategic inroads by those who don't share our values. We're trying to move these newly independent countries toward the west We would like to see them reliant on western commercial and political interests rather than going another way. We've made a substantial political investment in the Caspian, and it's very important to us that both the pipeline map and the politics come out right."6

----------------
http://us.oneworld.net/external/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.transnational.org%2Fforum%2Fmeet%2F2001%2FChossudov_AMBOMacedonia.html

3)Did Holbrooke ever mention the Clinton Administration , via the "US Trade and Development Administration" giving Brown and Root
(subsidary of Halliburton) roughly $500,000-- in 1996!! -- to conduct a "feasibility study" of running a pipeline across the Yugoslavian penisula just south of Kosovo?
See http://www.gasandoil.com/goc/news/nte24204.htm

4) Free Republic paid a lot of attention to the Caspian Sea oil game when it was the Clintons whoring for the Houston Oil Boys --but it's deep interest seems to have waned since Cheney took office.
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3793a582649e.htm

5) I haven't checked out the sources and allegations at this site --but it suggests that Wesley Clark was not all that adverse to Islamic terrorists back in 1998 when they were of value.
http://guest.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex/Documents/www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex/Documents/balkansUSbackterrorism.htm

6) While I notice that we haven't exactly discovered mass graves with a "hundred thousand bodies" in Iraq, neither have we discovered "mass graves with a hundred thousand bodies" in Kosovo.
Administrations changes, power shifts --the lies told to the American voters remain the same.

Mr. Clarke's issue is the "state sponsor" of terror. He disagrees with policy that seeks to confront the states that are suspected of sponsoring terror. Perhaps this really what the WoT debate is about. John Kerry may agree that states sponsor terrorism, but he would appear to disagree with the way in which the Bush Administration has enforced the National Defense to deal with it.

TexasToast says, "Is the Bush post-9/11 counterterrorism strategy the best one, and what are the alternatives to that strategy?".

This is the wrong question. The real question that should be asked is "Is confrontation with States that harbor and support terrorism that threaten the National Security of the United States and her allies the best post Cold War strategy?

9/11 was the catalyst to makes this question an urgent matter. Our problem is the Bush Doctrine aims to avoid the Cold War stagnations of looking for existing inadequecies around the world in order to support them and instead opts for a radical shift in creating an ally from the ground up so as to eliminate or hamper the activities of anti-americanisms in certain parts of the world.

Actually, Bush is not creating new allies of any importance. What he is doing is alienating and threatening the other major economic, military, and nuclear powers --including our long time NATO allies --into forming an alliance against us.

He is causing the start of another long, expensive Cold War.

While that may be in the interests of Big Oil and Big Defense, it is certainly not in the interest of the American people. We are the world's largest economy -- but what that means is we have the most to lose.

"Think I'm exaggerating? According to Against All Enemies, the reason Clinton decides to intervene in Bosnia in 1995 is because Al Qaeda was threatening to capture the Bosnian government."

You are exaggerating; I read the book and he says no such thing. Do you have a page number for this? The only thing I can find that even vaguely sounds like this is on page 225:

"He (Clinton) had defeated Al Qaeda when it had attempted to take over Bosnia by having its fighters dominate the defense of the breakaway state from Serbian attacks."

That's a reference to Clinton working to make sure the mujiheddin didn't get any power in the Bosnian military or post-war government (pages 136-140), not "Clinton invaded Bosnia to get Al Qaeda."

I may be alone in this, but you folks may fin this funny...

I almost... almost.... thought Dan was coming to his senses, when I mis-read the headline as 'Fisking "Against All Enemies"'

Dan,

Clarke's book seems to have two main thrusts:

1. The failure to take threats seriously before 9/11


2. Invading Iraq was a giant step backward in the war on terror.

There has been much jawing about point 1, partially because of the 9/11 comission's highly visible public hearings last week. But point 2 seems to me to be the more important of the two.

I haven't noticed that you weighed in on that in any of your analysis. Your opinion? I'm curious...

More Conspiracy Non sense
Don Williams go to a map and see if Bosnia breaks any routes to an EVENTUAL pipeline from Caspian Sea to Adriatic, they even dont have almost any coast.
For the sake of argument i am assuming theres need for a such pipeline.
-------------------------------------------------

I am amazed for the Mr. Drezner soft take on Clarke. The man said one thing and it's contrary.

He said attack on Serbia was to prevent Al-queda takeover of Bosnia! But an Al-queda takeover of Iraq wasnt possible too using same rationale? Ansar-Al Islam was/is there...
And the follow up to Bosnia? almost nothing?!
What was the support to Northern Alliance in Afghanistan? why Mr. Clarke let fall the country in Taliban hands? If Mr. Clarke was aware of Al-Queda danger it was as aware that was a major failure of the governement.What he says about that? And what was the policy towards Pakistan?

"The result is that what's in Against all Enemies is certainly the truth, but as I said before, I doubt it's the whole truth."

then this

"In the worst sense, Clarke was a monomaniacal martinet whose focus on his bailiwick to the exclusion of everything else is phenomenal."

Unless i know the issues personally stating "certainly the truth" seems rather strangely strong which the second paragraph just reinforces.

Tinman, you say:

"Tommy G ... suggests that invading a country that had little or no connection to al Qaeda wouldn't inflame Arab and Islamist opinion."

Even though what I said was:

"Now, he meant Iraq, but wouldn't what he believes be equally true had we only engaged Afghanistan? Of course it would.

Do you see what I mean by perverted? How is it possible to even have a discussion with the left when they can't even keep things strait *when they're in print* FOR THE LOVE OF GOD.

And you're the one with the drug references? Small wonder.

Please restate your question...

Don Williams,

Having read the rest of the posts, I see that you get it. Get what is really important, and what really is going on.

The answer is more in your first post,than your second. Yet though I would quibble with the second - it's cold, unbiased assesment is correct.

I have a question for those defending Bush against Clarke's accusations:

Are you saying that Bush and Clinton were about equally bad as far as fighting terrorism goes?

So does that mean that come November we should not vote for either Bush or Clinton, if terrorism is a major concern on which to base our vote?

Funny thing, Clinton isn't running. But, even funnier, Bush is running based on his evidently poor record in the "war against terror".

Make no mistake, I, too, do not believe that 9/11 could have been prevented, if only people had listened to Clarke earlier. By chance, maybe, but not just by the right anti-terror policies. But I find it absolutely ridiculous and even a bit disgusting that Bush is running campaign ads trying to benefit from something awful that happened UNDER HIS WATCH, something HE DIDN'T PREVENT from happening. How can he possibly want to turn an embarrassing failure into a campaign issue?

And this whole thing about not letting Rice testify under oath - how aburd is that? Or, anyway, how absurd does that look? Even if you agree with the policies of the Bush administration in general, doesn't this kind of thing at least make you doubt the sanity of some of the people running our government?

re: mass graves

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=37540

More perversion...

"But I find it absolutely ridiculous and even a bit disgusting that Bush is running campaign ads trying to benefit from something awful that happened under his watch, something he didn't prevent from happening."

'gw', do you really not know that the intent of the ads is to run on the administrations *response* to the attacks?

Help me out here, buddy. I find either your a) dishonesty or b) disability 'disgusting'. Which is it?

TexasToast,

You should know better as a lawyer. Deceit consists of uttering half-truths with the intent and effect of deceit.

"... where one does speak he must speak the whole truth to the end that he does not conceal any facts which materially qualify those stated. One who is asked for or volunteers information must be truthful, and the telling of a half-truth calculated to deceive is fraud." Cicone v. URS Corp. (1986) 183 Cal.App.3d 194, 201.

California Civil Code section 1710: "A deceit ... is either ... (3) The suppression of fact, by one who is bound to disclose it, or who gives information of other facts which are likely to mislead for want of communication of that fact ..."

Portions of Clarke's book and public utterances in the past two months qualify as deceit, and not just under California law. I started with SEC Enforcement. He has gone over the line several times - not as many as his detractors allege, but enough to impeach his credibilty.

He also lies outright on occasion. Here is an example:

http://edwardjayepstein.com/clarke.htm

"Question:

Richard A. Clarke makes assertions in his book Against All Enemies that can be easily checked against external and unambiguous sources. Is Clarke truthful in verifiable assertions he makes?

Answer:

No, in at least one instance Clarke totally fabricates a position he attributes to Laurie Mylroie, author of Study Of Revenge (2000), and then he use his own fabrication to discredit that author's position.

On p.95 of his Against All Enemies, Clarke states that "author" Laurie Mylroie had asserted "Ramzi Yousef was not in the federal Metropolitan Detention Center in Manhattan but lounging at the right hand of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad." He then debunks this "thesis" by stating that, in fact, Ramzi Yousef "had been in a U.S. jail for years," which was true.

Obviously, if Yousef had been in prison in America, he could not be in Baghdad at the right hand of Saddam, and Mylroie's theory would be demonstratively untrue-- a discreditation Clarke considers important enough to feature on the dust jacket of his book, noting that prior to 9-11 "[Paul] Wolfowitz was actually spouting the totally discredited Laurie Mylroie theory."

The problem here is that the straw man Clarke demolishes is an invention entirely of his own creation. Mylroie did not write anything remotely like it before 9-11 (or after it). On the contrary, she explicitly states on p. 212 of her book Study Of Revenge, "Ramzi Yousef was arrested and returned to the U.S. on February 7, 1995." While she questions the provenance of documents he used prior to his capture in 1995, she does not claim in her book or any other writing that Yousef resides anywhere but a maximum security federal prison.

Clarke himself makes up the absurd assertion Yousef was in Baghdad with Saddam, falsely attributes it to Mylroie, then uses it to discredit Mylroie.

Tommy G, I respectfully decline the invitation to be on your buddy list.

So one either has to be dishonest or (mentally?) disabled to not agree with using a terror attack in a campaign ad? Oh, excuse me, the RESPONSE to a terror attack?

Has it not occurred to you that this "response" wouldn't have been necessary if the attack had been PREVENTED to begin with? And what exactly was the domestic response, anyway, other than haphazardly locking up and deporting a few hundred illegal Arab immigrants who had no connection to the attacks? Do you feel safer now? I don't!

And what, precisely, has this administration done to PREVENT the next attack? One hears complaints from all over the country that not enough money has been made available to secure ports, buildings, to equip the police, the FBI etc.

But it's all about RESPONSE, isn't it? They act, we react. And Bush is seriously running on this platform? And he still has people falling for it? Amazing.

Again, do you feel safer now? I don't!

Hey Clem:

Know any places where the "diversion of resources" claim that is part of Clarke's book has been discussed? I keep hearing that claim (from Graham, from Gen Clark, and now Clarke) and never seem to find the basis of the claim, other than a vague thought that we don't have enough troops of the ground in Afghanistan.

Thanks for the help.

Great, Holsinger's here.

I was going to wait for some blow-back, but...

1) I gotta get
2) He is imminently qualified to retort, Infact I was going to disbar him, and the other 'Strat-pagers" from answering this:

Clarke, and all his supporters here, are wrong about Iraq being a distraction. Why?

Well, Tom would've told you what I'm about to, and what Don Williams (above) was about to figure out. Iraq is about China.

It's that simple.

The War on Terror? Please. That was *so* turn of the century. The GWOT is a side-show for us, and the only question about the rising of the Middle Kingdom is how many machines are exchanged for oil *on both sides of the equation* - and how we, in concert with the State Department, can shape the best future for this republic.

The DOD plans in terms of Centuries, [That was for you, Tom - name the book] and nothing that we or the Islamic Fascists do now can change the inevitable end of Al Queda. Think Europe 1944.

That's why Iraq is important.

gw,

No, not to agree - to understand what it was about. But I see now (as can anyone who goes back to check your two posts)that you're about as consistent as Kerry.

You actually did argue that no one could have prevented the attacks, before you voted aga..er.. before you argued that the President should have prevented them.

Shorter gw: "Hey, Tom - the answer is b."

"But the handling/uncovering of the Millenium plots and the LAX bomb attempt are exclusive."

Should I just take your word for it? Ressam was under no surveillance and the arrests in both Boston and NYC happened only after Ressam was detained in early December. Papers on Ressam directly linked him to one of the Algerians in NYC. Without Ressam the FBI/NSA/CIA would have been just as ignorant about the plots as before one of the Jordanian terrorists mentioned New Years on a tapped line. But I would be interested to hear why you think they were "exclusive" of each other.

"Intelligence discovered the Millenium plotting."

Deputy NSA Steinberg: "There was considerable luck involved. It was not an intelligence success." When asked on Frontline in 2001 about Ressam.

"An alert border agent discovered Ressam. The end result of the latter neither proves nor disproves the former."

I agree. They are entirely coincidental just like our intelligence agencies stumbling onto the Millenium plots. Yet Clarke wants to hold that up as an example of how effective they were pre-Bush.

"Similarly, Moussaoui's capture was the work of alert flight school instructors and FBI agents in Mpls. Only FBI D.C. bureaucrats argued about it."

There was no certainty linking Moussaoui to Al Qaeda. The French said he was. Then said no, sorry, Jemai Islamiah. The problem was all the authorities had on ZM were immigration violations unlike Ressam.

"Clarke doesn't seem to focus his criticism over specific policy as much as he does on the Bush Admin's attitude towards setting policy priorites."

Yes, and on the surface he is credible. But by excluding the numerous mistakes and oversights pre-Bush he could be god almighty and those predisposed to think he's a liar will do so. And, conversely, the issues are so convoluted that those predisposed to see him as entirely trustworthy will do so regardless of any evidence to the contrary.

By the way, the first time Al Qaeda links to flight schools came up was in 1996 when Yousef and Murad were tried. Murad gave a laundry list of flight schools he had attended from Dubai to San Antonio and admitted that he was to fly a hijacked passenger plane into Langley, VA. Want to guess what substantive changes were made to airport security afterwards? Maybe someone who has or plans to read the book can explain how Clarke handles Murad. Would be interesting to know but not quite enough to make me fork over money.

Actually, Tommy G, I figured out that the "war on terror" was about getting China by the short and curlies way back in October 2001 --when I started pondering why the corporate owners of our TV networks ( Jack Welch at General Electric,etc.) would lose $400 million in lost ad revenue just to continually broadcast scenes of death and suffering --with no information --to the American voters for almost a week. I was trying to figure out what profits would justify that investment.

See my October 2001 article at SmirkingChimp
"'What the news media are not telling you".
A copy is here :
http://www.vex.net:99/pipermail/wclp/2001-October/001152.html
and here:
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/article.php?thold=-1&mode=nested&order=0&sid=3620

(The last is the original site, but it sometimes takes 10-15 seconds to load)

Then see my December 2001 article at Counterpunch when I made the China connection:

http://www.counterpunch.org/dwilliams1.html

In the coming decades, China will certainly have a strong thirst for oil as 1 billion Chinamen trade in their bicycles for Ford Escorts.

The profits will be immense --but somehow I think very little will go to the families of the servicement killed in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Just as Dick Cheney, George H Bush, and the Republican Congresses of 1994-2001 joined with Clinton to reward our soldiers and spies for winning the Cold War by throwing about 2 million of them out on the street--with little to no prospects in the commercial job market. Military personnel were cut by 40% and the intelligence community was cut by 25%. One of those who left was Gulf War combat veteran and Bronze Star winner Timothy McVeigh. Another was DC sniper John Muhommand.

Plus let's not forget the massive numbers of defense and intelligence contractor workers thrown out on the street. While "Compassionate Conservative" Lynne Cheney was on Lockheed Martin's Board of Directors from 1994 to 2001, that companies 10-Ks show that it cut employees from 190,000 to 125,000.

AM

The argument I’ve seen is that intelligence and special forces assets (i.e. people with knowledge of the customs and language skills) were withdrawn form the hunt for AQ and diverted to the Iraq conflict. I think I have a cite at home.

Tom

Thanks for the citations. I do know the legal definition of “deceit”, but I don’t think that Prof Drezner was using the term “whole truth” in that sense, but rather in a rhetorical sense. He can certainly correct me if I am wrong, but I think he is saying that his argument is with the man’s conclusions – not with the facts he has asserted.

I really see no intent to defraud in the portions of the book that I have read or in the public statements that I have heard or heard about Mr. Clarke making. Absent an intent to defraud, there is no actionable claim. Your link refers to a “false” attribution to Laurie Mylroie of a statement about the location of Ramzi Yousef. I confess I don’t know the facts surrounding the location of Ramzi Yousef. Assuming all facts in favor of your position, and that Laurie Milroie did not say where this man was located, I fail to see that the actual location of this gentlemen makes the least bit of difference. The actual location of Ramzi Yousef, like the other attacks on this man’s credibility, are at most irrelevant minutia to the thrust of what he is saying.

Can we stick to the real issue here?

TexasToast,

Mylroie was Clinton's adviser on Iraq during the 1992 presidential campaign, but did not get a post in his admnistration. She also seems to have been some sort of terrorism consultant for the DOD at some point. Mylroie is best known as the leading proponent of the theory that Saddam's regime was involved to some extent with the 1994 WTC bombing.

My knowledge of Mylroie is largely confined to her excellent Bush vs. the Beltway about bureaucratic obstacles to Bush's war on terror. Her book unintentionally provides current graphic examples of structural national security problems described in Zygart's equally outstanding, but academically oriented, Flawed by Design, which I learned of from Dan Drezner's recommendation.

Mylroie has been criticized for contending that Saddam's regime had something to do with the McVeigh/Nichols bombing of the Murtaugh building in Oklahoma City, which is what I suspect drives Clarke's alleged special animosity for her, as he made favorable comments on this theory (though not Mylroie) in his book. Clarke's issues with Mylorie clearly originate here, though just how is more speculative.

As for the real issue here, it is pretty simple. Clarke is out to get Kerry elected and his book is his chosen vehicle to do so. Clarke has demonstrated recklessness and incredible lack of professionalism in doing so. He has single-handedly killed the concept of a non-partisan career staff for the National Security Council staff. This will have dramatic adverse effects on national security and get lots of Americans unnecessarily killed.

Tommy G,

I never said the President SHOULD have been able to prevent the attacks. If he HAD BEEN ABLE TO PREVENT THEM, then he would deserve a lot of praise for that. But having to RESPOND to a terror attack is really nothing to be proud of. Any president would have responded. Others would have almost certainly done a much better job responding than Bush, but that's just my opinion, of course.

I see Bush exploiting the fact that the attacks occurred for his campaign.

I don't see Bush doing anything domestically to prevent future attacks.

You still haven't answered my question if you feel safer now. Of course, that's the point: we are not supposed to feel safe. Isn't it? I remember the days when being a Republican seemed to be about downsizing Big Government. Today being a Republican seems more and more to be about turning Big Government into Big Brother. At least that's how it feels like sometimes.

But are you actually going to respond to arguments, or are you just going to continue attacking anyone that dares to question the wisdom of the administration?

And why do you care so much that it makes you resort to personal attacks? Do you really think that Kerry would be "soft on terror" or any such nonsense? Did you read what McCain had to say about that? Incidentally, I think a lot of things would have gone a lot better over the last three years if McCain had been elected President in 2000. We and many others almost certainly wouldn't be having arguments like this. McCain would probably be re-elected by a landslide, and I would be happy to vote for him.

The actual location of Ramzi Yousef, like the other attacks on this man’s credibility, are at most irrelevant minutia to the thrust of what he is saying. Can we stick to the real issue here?

Actually, this IS the central issue.
Clarke's simply not credible, and the sub-issue listed is one of many to tha point.

If he cannot be trusted as a source, then he can't be truisted even on what you're trying to push as a central point.

It's really that simple.

Appalled Moderate wrote:
Know any places where the "diversion of resources" claim that is part of Clarke's book has been discussed?

Well, I think Clarke makes a pretty good argument along those lines himself, but I suppose you're looking for corroboration. So...

Allow me to point you to a paper from the Strategic Studies Institute, the U.S. Army’s think tank for the analysis of national security policy and military strategy, titled Bounding the Global War on Terrorism by Dr. Jeffrey Record.

In it he calls the Iraq invasion “an unnecessary preventive war of choice against a deterred Iraq that has created a new front in the Middle East for Islamic terrorism and diverted attention and resources away from securing the American homeland against further assault by an undeterrable al-Qaeda.”

The full article (all 62 pages in pdf format) is available at http://www.back-to-iraq.com/archives/Files/bounding.pdf

An executive summary is available at
http://www.back-to-iraq.com/archives/000646.php

Want more? Google is your friend: http://tinyurl.com/2hsyh

Rereading Bounding the Global War on Terrorism, I was struck by this excerpt. I think it cuts to the heart of the Diversion of Resources claim.

[H]omeland security is probably the greatest GWOT opportunity cost of the war against Iraq. Consider, for example, the approximately $150 billion already authorized or requested to cover the war and postwar costs (with no end in sight).This figure exceeds by over $50 billion the estimated $98.4 billion shortfall in federal funding of emergency response agencies in the United States over the next 5 years. The estimate is the product of an independent task force study sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations and completed in the summer of 2003. The study, entitled Emergency Responders:Drastically Underfunded, Dangerously Unprepared , concluded that almost two years after 9/11, “the United States remains dangerously ill-prepared to handle a catastrophic attack on American soil ”because of, among other things, acute shortages of radios among firefighters, WMD protective gear for police departments, basic equipment and expertise in public health laboratories,and hazardous materials detection equipment in most cities.” And emergency responders constitute just one of dozens of underfunded homeland security components.

Don Williams wrote:

Actually, Bush is not creating new allies of any importance. What he is doing is alienating and threatening the other major economic, military, and nuclear powers --including our long time NATO allies --into forming an alliance against us.

Is that why NATO is helping us in Afghanistan and Bush was able to get China and Russia to cooperate in dealing with North Korea – because all of these other nations are forming an alliance against the United States?

GW wrote:

I have a question for those defending Bush against Clarke's accusations:

Which accusations would those be - the one where he claimed that Bush’s national security advisor had never heard of Al-Qaeda even though she had delivered lectures on the subject or the one where he claimed a notation on memo that read “revise and resubmit” had actually said “wrong answer”?

Are you saying that Bush and Clinton were about equally bad as far as fighting terrorism goes?

Of course not, Clinton was worse by a long shot.

So does that mean that come November we should not vote for either Bush or Clinton, if terrorism is a major concern on which to base our vote?

Funny thing, Clinton isn't running.

Even funnier, Kerry is.

But, even funnier, Bush is running based on his evidently poor record in the "war against terror".

Burn strawman, burn.

Make no mistake, I, too, do not believe that 9/11 could have been prevented, if only people had listened to Clarke earlier. By chance, maybe, but not just by the right anti-terror policies. But I find it absolutely ridiculous and even a bit disgusting that Bush is running campaign ads trying to benefit from something awful that happened UNDER HIS WATCH, something HE DIDN'T PREVENT from happening. How can he possibly want to turn an embarrassing failure into a campaign issue?

Because while no serious person believes that 9/11 could have been prevented if only X had occurred, Bush’s response to it and switching from the purely reactive policy of his predecessor to a more assertive and proactive one is both a positive change and a marked difference between him and his opponent which represents a clear choice between the two candidates.

And this whole thing about not letting Rice testify under oath - how aburd is that? Or, anyway, how absurd does that look? Even if you agree with the policies of the Bush administration in general, doesn't this kind of thing at least make you doubt the sanity of some of the people running our government?

I tend not to put much stock in the opinions of people who throw around unfounded assertions about other people’s sanity. It reflects more on the person making the assertion.

Veritas
Thanks for the link re Iraq mass graves you posted at 2:54pm --I had not seen that.

I would point out that mass graves have also been found in Afghanistan -- made by the guys with the white hats..er..turbans. See http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1174554,00.html

Thorley,

Don Williams clearly does not think of Germany and Japan as allies, because they were our enemies 1941-45 so that never could have changed. This is how he squares his contention that we are not creating new allies with the Iraqi peoples' feelings concerning terrorism, the UN, France, etc.

And how he can exclude new friends and intelligence collaborators such as Libya.

Re Thorley Winston's above comment at 6:46 pm:
" Is that why NATO is helping us in Afghanistan and Bush was able to get China and Russia to cooperate in dealing with North Korea – because all of these other nations are forming an alliance against the United States?"
---------
Gee, did we see France and Germany voting with the US in the UN debate on Hussein --or did we see them working with China and Russia?

Obviously, if you're going up against a nuclear superpower, your response --and plans --are kept covert.

There are, however, a few "observables". For example, the move by France and Germany to form a EU military command independent of NATO --over US protests. See http://www.dw-world.de/english/0,,1433_A_1004430_1_A,00.html

France is pushing to end the EU's 15 year old embargo on arms sales to China -- see
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3578653.stm

Plus, Russia has been selling immense amounts of arms to China--although money is a big motivator.

“He has single-handedly killed the concept of a non-partisan career staff for the National Security Council staff. This will have dramatic adverse effects on national security and get lots of Americans unnecessarily killed.”

Yup, this is the long term deleterious result of the Richard Clarke fiasco. I’m very irritated that this harsh fact has been virtually ignored. Politics ends at the water's edge is a political principle of utmost importance. Americans needs both major parties on the same page in the fight against terrorism. An administration should not perceive somebody associated with the opposing political party as an enemy.

The Richard Clarke kerfuffle is mostly over. We are about the only ones on the planet who gives a fat damn. He will be almost forgotten by the end of next week. Only political junkies like ourselves will soon even recognize Clarke’s picture. President Bush is back up in the polls. What will be the next vicious attack on the President by the liberal establishment? Was that the last shot? If so, John Kerry is royally screwed. He will be urged to surrender the nomination to John Edwards.

Dave Thomson,

Nah, I repeat that the next one will be Oprah channeling Carl Sagan that our invasion of Iraq will cause a nuclear winter.

Re Lucklucky's comment at 1:57 pm:
"More Conspiracy Non sense
Don Williams go to a map and see if Bosnia breaks any routes to an EVENTUAL pipeline from Caspian Sea to Adriatic, they even dont have almost any coast. "
---------
Actually, Kosovo is just to the north of "Corridor 8". The trick was to create some rationale for telling the US taxpayers why they should pay to station US troops there. The aim is not to gain land --it is to gain bases for US military forces near an area of investment. Just as the "war on terror" is being used to justify the ring of bases being built in Central Asia to guard Houston's billion-dollar investments in Caspian Sea oil. See http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,233880,00.html and
http://www.inthesetimes.com/issue/26/11/feature2.shtml

There is also a larger strategic dimension. The interesting thing about the UN vote on the Iraq invasion was not Germany-France's opposition to the USA --it was that a SOLID wall of Eastern European Countries --From Poland down through Hungary into Turkey -- voted with the US and against France/Germany. It was also interesting that Poland chose to buy F16 jets from the US last year instead of European jets --given the supply dependencies that go with such weapons.

There are enormous trade flows from Europe to the US -- and from China/Japan to the US. There is relatively little trade flow between the huge economies of Europe and Asia , however. It is like a voltage potential -- and Russia is in the position to provide safe corridors for transportation and communication.

A unification of Eurasia --of EU with Russia and CHina --could surpass even the economic (and hence, military) power of the US. A wall of US allies in Eastern Europe, however, could block such unification by preventing or throttling transportation (railroads, pipelines crossing their territory) at will. Does anyone think Turkey has the balls to make Russian oil tankers queue up at the Bosphorus Straits --contrary to the 1929 treaty --if Turkey did not have the strong backing of the US military?

Thorley Winston wrote:

Which accusations would those be - the one where he claimed that Bush’s national security advisor had never heard of Al-Qaeda even though she had delivered lectures on the subject or the one where he claimed a notation on memo that read “revise and resubmit” had actually said “wrong answer”?

I don't know about the memo, but I know that Clarke said that Rice had given him the impression or reacted as if she had never heard of Al Qaeda. Not that she had actually never heard of it. Little distortions go a great way in a character assassination campaign, don't they?

Because while no serious person believes that 9/11 could have been prevented if only X had occurred, Bush’s response to it and switching from the purely reactive policy of his predecessor to a more assertive and proactive one is both a positive change and a marked difference between him and his opponent which represents a clear choice between the two candidates.

Again, you are comparing Bush with Clinton. Let's ignore whether your statements are accurate, but as I already said: Clinton isn't running.

Can you point me to some proactive measures taken by the government against future terrorist attacks within the US?

The only thing that Bush did that could count as "proactive" was the invasion of Iraq. So is that what you mean? But it appears more and more that Iraq was the wrong target. Sure, getting rid of a dictator is always a good thing. But there are so many - why start with a relatively secular guy who was not even an ally of Al Qaeda? They hated Saddam almost as much as they hated us. Why not start with, say, Saudi Arabia? Wouldn't that have made a lot more sense? I'm not talking about invading Saudi Arabia, mind you (although the islamists think we already did that anyway!), but how about a much firmer approach to press for changes and for shutting down the brainwashing wahabist schools? Now, THAT would be a new proactive policy.

Dave Thomson,

I just thought of a spinoff of your comment here:

"Yup, this is the long term deleterious result of the Richard Clarke fiasco. I’m very irritated that this harsh fact has been virtually ignored. Politics ends at the water's edge is a political principle of utmost importance. Americans needs both major parties on the same page in the fight against terrorism. An administration should not perceive somebody associated with the opposing political party as an enemy."

Among the non-partisan, or bi-partisan, elements of the national security apparatus are the Congressional intelligence committees. Senator Rockefeller and his Democratic staff on this committee have shown that that non-partisanship/bi-partisanship are dead letters there too.

So what happens to Presidential willingness to comply with the law about notification of the Congressional intelligence committees of things like covert operations? Strategy Page had an interesting report last month, or earlier this monthh, on the Defense Department's development of its own covert operations force. The motivation for this was reportedly both dis-satisfaction with the CIA's abilities here, and that DOD covert ops don't have to be reported to Congress.

I wonder if we'll return to the World War Two practices of basically non-existent congressional oversight of secret affairs, and whether that will be de facto or eventually de jure.

Not to mention the policy ramifications of this.

Look I voted for Herbert Walker Bush over Clinton, but I have no fantasy that if Clinton (or even detestable Gore) were in office on 9/12 the words coming out their mouths would NOT have been "let's bomb Iraq for this."

Call it cowardice or lack of imagination, but I'm pretty sure that that hijacking the tragedy of 911 to push a war of aggression would not have occurred to Gore or his staff.

Alqueda was in Afghanistan. And whatever else happened before 911, for the chutzpah of invading Iraq and then complaining why Admin critics don't acknowledge that there are Alqueda there now trying to take over is kind of relentlessly insulting to both the 911 families and the intelligence of Americans.

Dan,

Thanks for reading Clarke's book so I don't have to. Back to Spinoza, the easiest of philosophers.

Tom Holsinger said: "He has single-handedly killed the concept of a non-partisan career staff for the National Security Council staff."

So do you think if Kerry wins he will keep anyone from the current administration? I doubt it sincerely.

Couple that with the fact that Senate confirmation of appointees (think specifically Defense, Homeland Security and NSC) take MONTHS when a new administration enters office.

What does that leave us with? A vulnerability window I don't even want to think about. When this sinks in, there are a lot of people who wouldn't even consider changing horses in midstream. Kerry's position (whatever it is) on the fight won't matter a twit.

As if the Millennium Plot and Sep. 11 were just as difficult to figure out... Perhaps if the "focused on terror" Clinton administration had passed a law considered to be politically unwise (confirmed in accounts by George Stephanoupolos - pre-Sep. 11 - and Dick Morris) as it was called "racial profiling," it would have been figured out. Perhaps if the Gore Commission had not been shelved coincidentally at the same time the airlines were donating to Clinton/Gore '96, it would have been figured out. Perhaps if the "we had no basis on which to hold him" excuse were not used, Osama would have been handed over by the Sudan...

Also, perhaps if "civil liberties" laws had not been passed during the Clinton years, we might have been able to look at Moussaoui's computer...

"I think its rather telling that the WH has been changing its story on the facts in the last week, while Mr. Clarke has remained disarmingly consistent."

He's consistenly a Republican... until asked who he voted for in Nov. 2000. He's consistently pro-Bush who worked hard on terrorism prior to Sep. 11... until asked what he thinks of Iraq, then suddenly Bush "did nothing." He's consistent that Bush only spoke "testily," until suddenly Bush "dragged" him in and "intimidated" him. He's consistent that Condi seemingly didn't know about al Qaeda... until confronted with the fact that she spoke about it at length... oh wait he hasn't been confronted with that. I'm sure the "I was just spinning" excuse will work.

"Funny thing, Clinton isn't running."

And where exactly does Kerry differ with Clinton, other than possibly being weaker on terror? Also if the Clarke apologists are saying Clarke is essential to fighting the war, he's on record saying he would never accept a position in the Kerry camp.

"Call it cowardice or lack of imagination, but I'm pretty sure that that hijacking the tragedy of 911 to push a war of aggression would not have occurred to Gore or his staff."

A) Before it became talking-pointed and Angry Left-ed to death, Gore said we were headed for a "final reckoning" with Iraq, so yes, it would have at least OCCURED to him to go after Iraq at some point, if not the same point as Bush, but that's neither here nor there.

B) One of the biggest Iraq hawks in Washington would have been Gore's Vice President.

So yes, it's reasonable to assume that Gore and/or his staff would have thought about going after Iraq, or at least discussed Iraq to some extent shortly after the attack. But of course now, it's "HE BETRAYED THIS COUNTRY! HE PLAYED ON OUR FEARS!" Al Gore is one of the most pathetic individuals in American politics.

"Can you point me to some proactive measures taken by the government against future terrorist attacks within the US?"

Uh...that would be the aforementioned destruction and reassembly of Afghanistan.

But you're not really looking for answers, right? The point is to just keep asking the next question - cute.

...But since it bears repeating, 'gw', the simple truth of this matter is that Mr. Clarke is a pervert - as he amply demonstrated on MTP this past weekend.

He made it clear that he believes that our retaliation against global Islamic fascism only made matters worse. Now, he meant Iraq, but wouldn't what he believes be equally true had we only engaged Afghanistan? Of course it would. But, as I say, he is a pervert. Because the (il)logical pathway of his though process holds that being destroyed was all part of the Taliban's game-plan, And that we 'played right into their hands'.

He made it clear that he believes that our retaliation against global Islamic fascism only made matters worse. Now, he meant Iraq, but wouldn't what he believes be equally true had we only engaged Afghanistan? Of course it would

And this seems to me a rather central point that nobody's been talking about.

Taken a step further, and looking at the current events as regards the 9/11 commission, one could logically conclude a couple things.

First, we know that are moving into Iraq as well as Afghanistan so seriously screwed up AQ that they couldn't act as they would. The Washongton Times reported yesterday that

The Washington Times: reports from London that:

"Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, al Qaeda's purported operations chief, has told U.S. interrogators that the group had been planning attacks on the Library Tower in Los Angeles and the Sears Tower in Chicago on the heels of the September 11, 2001, terror strikes.
Those plans were aborted mainly because of the decisive U.S. response to the New York and Washington attacks, which disrupted the terrorist organization's plans so thoroughly that it could not proceed, according to transcripts of his conversations with interrogators. "

Now let's imagine for a moment we'd NOT responded as we did. Do you think for a moment we'd not have John Kerry out there complaining Bush hadn't done enough?

The bottom line is nothing other than power will satisfy the Democrats... right or wrong. ANd personally, that's just the kind of person I don't want anywhere NEAR the reins.

TommyG/Tom Foster

You dont have to say "perverted" again. It's darn hard to be subtle when you have to say something five times. I think we get it by now.

HH

He inconsistantly wore a red tie - and then a blue one! He can't be trusted.

"And, yes, it's entirely disingenuous for Clarke to claim that year was a successful one. They blundered into it and got lucky from the bottom up not the other way around."

Logically this is how it should work. There was no way to do something directly to defeat Al Qaeda and to stop various attacks. So there is no logical cause and effect in the argument.

The argument is entirely a statistical one. The point Clarke was making is that Clinton took the threats seriously and made it a top priority. That made the chance of detecting an attack and stopping it X%. As it turned out X was 100% as far as Al Qaeda was concerned in the US. In terms of the world X% was lower because they succeeded in bombing the embassies and the Cole.

Now this high level of activity in trying to stop Al Qaeda successfully stopped the Millenium and the LAX plots. The chances of that happening are completely random, as it turned out it's reasonable to assume that the higher priority at the top translated down into random areas of increased alertness. Even if those areas didn't foil either of those two plots the odds were it was likely to stop some kinds of plots. To assume otherwise is to say a top priority on terrorism is completely dysfunctional at the lower levels.

So generally speaking a higher priority of stopping terrorism translated to higher vigilance in random parts of the government. The chance of catching terrorists is random since you don't know where they are. So you need to get lucky. Clinton and Clarke making it a priority made it more likely terrorists would be stopped and so they were. There isn't a direct cause and effect between the two but Clarke increased the odds in their favour.

Now Clarke's complaint is that Bush did not make it a priority at all and let the system get slack. As a result this lowered the odds of the system stopping terrorists from X% under Clinton to a lesser value Y%. Now we don't know if X% of vigilance would have stopped 9/11 but we know that Y% was insufficient and that Bush could have made X% effort but did not.

Some have said they believe extra effort would have prevented 9/11 and some have said they don't think it would have made any difference. Neither really has any basis for their belief.

Clarke it simply saying that the government puts a system in place and they get lucky and catch terrorists. If you tweak the system to the max you get luckier, and it's possible you can take that to the point where the odds are in their favour so much no terrorists will succeed. Some will argue that level of success is impossible but they don't know this, just as Clarke doesn't know if a perfect system is possible. The question is pure probability.

Clarke is saying that Bush's negligence made it less likely the system would stop terrorists. We don't know if for example extra priority would have trickled down to noticing people taking extra flight lessons, or in realising Al Qaeda were in the country, or whether it then would have been feasible to put their photos in the papers, etc.

We do know that it is likely that if terrorism had been a top priority for Bush the system would have had a higher probability of catching terrorists. Now say for example 9/11 didn't happen and that instead there were plots like the Millenium one. The lack of vigilence may have made those more likely to succeed.

The moral of the story is they should have increased their odds of containing Al Qaeda as much as possible given the bombing of the Cole, etc and the briefing they got from Clinton. They didn't do that and they got unlucky when 9/11 happened.

The question then is how wrong was Bush not to maximise his chances of stopping terrorism given what he knew prior to 9/11? Clarke says he was very wrong, and that is the complaint he makes.

"But, even funnier, Bush is running based on his evidently poor record in the "war against terror".
Burn strawman, burn."

That's not a strawman. Bush is running on his record in the war against terror. There is evidence his record is poor. So there's no strawman there.

A strawman is when someone constucts a false version of an issue and then refutes that, not the real facts. By calling this a strawman you construct a strawman yourself. You dismiss his argument calling it a strawman, creating a strawman yourself, does that have a name? Strawman strawman? I think I hear Aristotle rolling in his grave.

TexasToast,

Too Much? You think that's too much? OK. I'll stand down. You're a fairly reputable critic (long term poster, decent arguments). It's to bad the word has taken on such mythic sexual over-tones, because it actually is great short-hand for Clarke's weird, inverse, Bizzarro world view of things.

Great shock value, Great.

Anyrate, Ok. I appreciate your asking, so no more for now. This Caveat, though. Only until someone starts dragging out the 'Bush Lied' nonsense. Fair enough?

Bits!

Thank God.

Jeez, No Thorley. Holsinger's busy on his page, and even Kelli's doing something else.

"Taken a step further, and looking at the current events as regards the 9/11 commission, one could logically conclude a couple things.

First, we know that are moving into Iraq as well as Afghanistan so seriously screwed up AQ that they couldn't act as they would.

Now let's imagine for a moment we'd NOT responded as we did. Do you think for a moment we'd not have John Kerry out there complaining Bush hadn't done enough?"

Exactly. And you know what? He'd be right.

Re: Bosnia comments:

When Clarke says in his preface that he will tell the story of "Bill Clinton, who identified terrorism as the major post-Cold War threat and acted to improve our counterterrorism capabilities; who (little known to the public) quelled anti-American terrorism by Iraq and Iran and defeated an al Qaeda attempt to dominate Bosnia; but who, weakened by continued political attack, could not get the CIA, the Pentagon, and FBI to act sufficiently to deal with the threat"--he is echoing the thesis of Blumenthal, whose tedious 2003 memoir The Clinton Wars blamed all of Clinton's failures in combatting al Qaeda on Clinton's political foes.

"First, we know that are moving into Iraq as well as Afghanistan so seriously screwed up AQ that they couldn't act as they would."

The quote you give doesn't say that. First you don't know whether the guy is a reliable source or not. Then you don't know if he was referring to the invasion of Afghanistan or Iraq or both, and then you don't know what Kerry would say.

On the other hand your grammar and punctuation were quite good.

But since it bears repeating, 'gw', the simple truth of this matter is that Mr. Clarke is a pervert - as he amply demonstrated on MTP this past weekend.

Do you guys realize how ridiculous you sound? C'mon. You did get past Junior High School, didn't you?

You're doing a disservice to our host Dr. Drezner by engaging in infantile banter like that. He deserves better.

HH,

Of course, you're right - which is why 'gw' is such an obvious hack. It's about the administrations response to a situation that had grown out of control.

Clem,

I addressed that issue a full hour before you posted. Why the feigned dismay? Have you scanned 'gw''s responses? What's so ridiculous about defending the administration?

Re:Don Wiliams

After the cold war and revolution in Albania the country went to a close relationship with Italy and US, i dont have present that US already had bases there at start of hostilites but i know there were talks for such and military cooperation was already present. So no need for such a thing in Kosovo.
The Eurasia : theres already natural gas pipelines from Russia to Europe from the 80´s (it was protested by US and UK because of energy security compromise in Cold war)

About the "new europe":

Nothing surprising there , the eastern europe governements know precisely well the behaviour of most of Western Europe : from second world war treason to Poland to the cold war platitudes to the soviets and the ostpolitik. I am in Europe and i know precisely the dominant discourse in 70´s and 80´s: it was just to try to not irritate the soviets, Reagan was evil maybe more than Bush.
The case of Poland that you refer is paradigmatic: Poland choose strategicaly to make an alliance with USA because the lessons of history, that saw country ravaged between 2 imperial nations. Theres is no trust between neighborous in that part of the world.

"Does anyone think Turkey has the balls to make Russian oil tankers queue up at the Bosphorus Straits --contrary to the 1929 treaty --if Turkey did not have the strong backing of the US military?"

Shipping increased too much for the straits capacity, it was getting dangerous with accidents, remember that there no taxes to pass there. Now they have made a pipeline from Black Sea to Mediterranean Sea. Btw I.M.O approved the Turkish environemental regulations but it's true they go against a Treaty that dont have any disposition against civil vessels. But times change, and if something wrong(eg: Exxon Valdez) would happened the mess was in Turkish hands.

Nice try, Mito, but abstractions and emotions don't translate into effectiveness. Even if Clarke is 100% truthful about the intensive effort of the cabinet-level meetings it still doesn't change the fact that the Millenium Plot was thwarted because of a jumpy terrorist and an attentive Customs agent. There is a complete disconnect between Port Angeles and D.C. French intelligence had alerted both Canada and U.S. intel about Ressam in mid-'99 and nothing was done to even track him down much less alert choke points like airports and border crossings. I don't care if Clarke, Berger, et al were walking about chanting and sticking pins in Osama dolls Clarke summarized 1999 in a way that, dishonestly in my opinion, gave credit to the leaders in D.C.

And 1999 wasn't unique. FBI investigated Hijazi and Jordanian intelligence had a recorded phone call between Hijazi and Abu Zubayda. Hijazi was linked to atleast two of the future 9/11 hijackers. The CIA had a meeting in Kuala Lumpur monitored and atleast one future 9/11 hijacker was photographed with Sheikh Muhammad. Murad admitted in 1996 that he went to numerous flight schools to train for a suicide attack using a passenger airplane against CIA headquarters in Langley. There were dozens of little pieces of the puzzle KNOWN to domestic agencies yet Clarke's "tree shaking" meetings did nothing.

Probablity and likelihood aside I don't see how Clarke's portrayal of the Clinton years differs in any way to those under Bush. Clarke glossed over 1999 to show how concern in Washington translated to effective field work. Read his submitted testimony to the Commission. He in no way details how he just states it as self-evident fact. You'd think after spending a year ruminating on the contents of his book he'd be able to cite a better example to illustrate his point. The point is that the same structural problems and inertia that caused problems in 2001 were causing problems in 1994, 1995, 1996....

HH wrote:

And where exactly does Kerry differ with Clinton, other than possibly being weaker on terror?

Kerry was in Vietnam, while Clinton avoided the draft and while Bush used his connections to get into the National Guard.

Kerry has substantial international experience. Bush had virtually none when he ran for office and even tried to turn that into an asset with some of his more isolationist base. Didn't he argue in the 2000 campaign that Clinton had gotten the US too involved in too many international conflicts?

Does any of this prove that Kerry will be better than Bush? No, of course not. But Bush is the one who is trying to turn 9/11 into an asset for his campaign. And that's wrong.

Also if the Clarke apologists are saying Clarke is essential to fighting the war, he's on record saying he would never accept a position in the Kerry camp.

"Clarke apologists"? Who are the apologists here?

And the way you are twisting words and facts to be the president's apologist is quite something: No, Clarke's person is not "essential to fighting the war", it's just that Team Bush apparently didn't have anybody better and might have been well-advised to listen to Clarke more and sooner. And Clarke said he wasn't going to join a Kerry administration in response to allegations he was just saying what he was saying to position himself to get a job with Kerry. He didn't say it, as I assume you were implying, because he has reservations against Kerry as president.

Tommy G wrote:

Uh...that would be the aforementioned destruction and reassembly of Afghanistan.

That was PROACTIVE? I thought that was a REACTION to 9/11. And Afghanistan has neither been destroyed nor "reassembled", it's been neglected because resourced were redirected to Iraq instead. And that's bad, because there are still lots of Taliban and Al Qaeda hiding in Afghanistan (and Pakistan), the warlords are still terrorizing most provinces, and the drug trade is booming again.

It was right to go into Afghanistan, no doubt about that. The military execution was very good, no question about that either. But the follow-up, which was critical, was really, really bad, especially at first. It seems to be getting a little better now, but it may still be too little too late.

Polyphemus is correct on the LAX bomber. It goes beyond luck to approaching incompetence given France's attempt to alert Canada(who refused to pick up the guy) and the US(who Clarke claims to have on alert). On Charlie Rose, Clarke used the LAX example to prove the heightened alertness paid off. Charlie pushed him on the point saying the LAX bomber was a lucky catch and Clarke testily shot back that he was caught due to an alert put out by Washington. He uses the example to build up the Clinton administration and to hurt the Bush administration. The real question many don't want to answer is why would Clarke take credit for catching the LAX bomber which he did on Charlie Rose. The obvious conclusion is partisan simpathies.

Clarke was saying he voted for Bush in the Virginia primary(many voters cross party lines in a primary) to imply he was a Republican, but Russert nailed him by getting Clarke to admit voting for Gore in the 2000 election. Again, he painted factual events to lead viewers to a false conclusion.

Clarke's whole testimony must be viewed in a paritsan light, and I hope the commission will do this.

What those on the left are doing is trying to confuse the before event and after event actions. Bush and Clinton may not be much different in before event actions, but they do obviously differ in after event actions. Who thinks Bush's reaction to the embassey bombings or the Cole would have been the same as Clinton's. This is the ruse. I don't think casual observers will buy the "Democrats are tough on terrorism and Bush is soft on terrorism" argument.

"Intellectual" types like Krugman and DeLong can twist quotes like they do to Cheney's claim of Clarke being out of the loop(they leave out the "on a lot of stuff" modifier) to prove they approve of Clarke's tactics, but I just think they are all intellectually dishonest.

Thanks, Brian. But I wouldn't go so far as to say everything Clarke said was tainted by partisanship. Most of his testimony was very informative/objective. The only problem I had was his contention that there was a considerable difference between the effectiveness of the Clinton and Bush teams. And that he used the Millenium plot as the focus to back that contention.

But beyond that it makes me less confident about the Commission itself. Sure, swindle the public into believing that tripe but the Commissioners have access to all the documents and a staff to investigate. Yet they not only let Berger and Clarke repeatedly refer to the LAX bombing with "prevented", "stopped", "discovered" but they do it themselves. They should know better. I've seen better investigative work done by AToL and WSWS. I just hope the in camera hearings were more thorough(not a hard thing to do).

You're welcome, Polyphemus. I didn't mean to imply everything Clarke says is partisan, but every assertion needs to be verified with the knowledge some of his statements have been crafted with a partisan slant.

You're quite right about 9/11 Commissoners repeating Clarke's Millenium bomber line of reasoning to disparage Bush's pre-9/11 actions. I've heard it a couple of times.

I'm quite stunned by the pass Tenet and the CIA are getting from the press. In addition, the fundemental difference between Clinton's WH and Tenet on assassinating OBL. Again, this just corrodes Clarke's assertion of the terrorism war room in the WH.

I have not read Clarke's book, but I am assuming he does not mention how many times Clinton warned the Taliban. In fact, Clinton said he would hold them personally responsible for any attacks from OBL. Those hollow threats just reaffirmed the terrorist's belief in the US paper tiger after Somalia.

It all just shows how bad the major media is at reporting a story. Its all just face value reporting. The contempt with which our politicians and media hold the American public is astounding.

Well, with this morning comes news of yet another straw on the back of the Camel that is Clarke's credibility.

The Washington Times is reporting that:

" The final policy paper on national security that President Clinton submitted to Congress ... 45,000 words long ... makes no mention of al Qaeda and refers to Osama bin Laden by name just four times.
The scarce references to bin Laden and his terror network undercut claims by former White House terrorism analyst Richard A. Clarke that the Clinton administration considered al Qaeda an 'urgent' threat, while President Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, 'ignored' it. "

And so, Let's see what we've got here, with Clarke.
We have someone who claims to be a Republican, but voted for Al Gore, and who, according to FEC records, only donated to Dmeocrats for the last 10 years, and someone who is best freinds with Rand Beers, who is John Kerry's advisor on national security affairs.

Will the Democrats now admit they've been caught in another lie?

Perhaps now we know why Kerry disappeared so quickly in the last weeks... his people knew Clarke was going to blow up in their faces, and had to shelter Kerry from the explosion.

"Mr. Clarke is a pervert"

No he never matches me. hahahaha