As the former Terrorism Czar of the United States National Security Council, Richard Clarke is perhaps America’s foremost authority when it comes to analyzing the reactions of presidential administrations to terrorist activity over the past twenty years. As head of the NSC’s counterterrorism project for 10 years, Richard Clarke had practically made Osama Bin Laden into his own white whale. His recent testimony before the 9/11 Commission has been the most damning indictment to date regarding the involvement of George W. Bush’s regime with events surrounding the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001. His new book, Against All Enemies: Inside America’s War on Terror, expands on his testimony and provides an honest and unflinching look at what the White House knew before, during and after 9/11. Thus, Clarke’s book regarding the issues surrounding 9/11 and the Bushmen’s subsequent invasion of Iraq is an illuminating read for any behind-the-scenes investigation into al-Qaeda and the Bush regime.

‘Common’ Knowledge

To paraphrase what Clarke mentions early on as his reason for writing Against All Enemies: the information which he knows and considers common knowledge has, disturbingly, not informed public discourse. The White House’s earnest spin-campaign has largely steamrollered dissent when it could have counted: during the restructuring of public agencies following 9/11 and more recently on the sands of the Middle-East. For example, Clarke mentions repeatededly that the NSC, FBI and CIA have witnessed no evidence of Iraqi terrorist activity since a failed assasination attempt on George Bush Sr. in 1993. That’s ten years of no perceptable terrorist activity from Iraq. In fact, Bill Clinton’s 1993 cruise missile retaliation for the incident—which has often been cited as a ‘soft’ reply by conservative critics and has been considered by some to have been taken as a personal insult to the Bush family¹—is thought by Clarke to have effectively terminated Iraq’s terrorist activities. How is it that this significant lack of observed Iraqi terrorist activity is rarely noted in US cable news networks? Further, why do we still have to stomach the Bushmen’s continuous references to the rampant threat of Iraqi terrorism when all these national security agencies contradict the White House’s spin on things?

Condoleeza’s Headache

Poor Condi. While Clarke does not skewer her outright in his book, it’s not hard to see how his revelations about her and the Bush regime’s attitude towards counterterrorism pre-9/11 make life difficult for President Bush’s National Security Advisor. For example, Clarke claims that Bill Clinton and Al Gore were—despite the mentioned sense of “softness” held by those on the right—progressively concerned by al-Qaeda’s growing influence. Yet, when the Bushmen came into office in January 2001, they considered the Clinton administration’s attention to al-Qaeda to be “highly-odd.” At her first briefing regarding al-Qaeda, Rice had no clear picture about Bin Laden and his relationship to the extensive terrorism network of al-Qaeda. The Bush regime were of the mindset that Bin Laden was just a small fry on the global scene. They had no understanding or desire to understand the threat presented by the terrorist network he built.

During the initial security meetings of Bush’s presidency, Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld’s right-hand man, had what could be best interpreted as a petulant bug up his ass concerning Iraqi terrorism. Believeing ex-National Security Advisor Laurie Milroy’s debunked theory that Iraq was behind the WTC truck bombing—the NSC, FBI and CIA confirmed a lack of iraqi terrorist interests since ‘93, including no connection to that bombing—Wolfowitz completely discounted al-Qaeda as merely Osama Bin Laden and not an extensive network of associated terrorist groups. Clarke recalls that Wolfowitz ignored ‘the base’ by simply dismissing the man he associated it with².

Clarke also confirms that within hours of post 9/11 crisis meetings, top-Bushman Donald Rumsfeld was audaciously trying to pin the attacks on Iraq. Given the overwhelmingly intelligence pointing to everything but Iraq, this seemed almost like a deadpan joke on Rumsfeld’s behalf. Yet, shortly therafter, George W. Bush himself asked Clarke several times to find the connection between al-Qaeda and Saddam. He did not ask if there was a link, which he had been assured did not exist post-1993, but what that link was. Yup, Dubyah’s administration launched an extensive fishing expedition for reasons to whack Saddam ASAP³. Clarke contends that this hangup with Iraqi interests is partly to blame for why US troops were haphazardly deployed in Afghanistan, leaving massive tactical blind spots for al-Qaeda operatives to escape through.

Insider On Iraq

Before you wonder if Clarke’s critical views on the Bush administration are the result of a jaded bearucrat, consider his background. Clarke has worked in intelligence for the Reagan, Bush, Clinton and Bush jr regimes. He has been a long-time supporter of eradicating al-Qaeda and terrorism networks. He even made several attempts to gain authourization to abduct or assasinate Osama Bin Laden. Clarke is no lightweight, hanky-waving hippie. He has dealt with the stark world of intelligence and terrorism for thrity years. Yet, despite—or perhaps because—of all his institutional experience, he thinks that the Bush administration is flat out wrong in the prosecution of its war on terror.

Bob Woodward Eat Your Heart Out

In addition to all the unheralded data and contextual information that Clarke brings to the table, his behind the scenes accounts are also chocked full of some choice disclosures:

• There’s Bill Clinton’s earnest, but completely impracticable, suggestion that “Ninja guys in black suits” jump, guns a blazin’, into al-Qaeda’s camp after the Aug 20th 1998 cruise missile strikes on Afghanistan and Sudan.
• The much vaunted ‘Threat Matrix’ that ABC based an entire television series around is in fact just an excel spreadsheet.
• Even a former White House insider like Clarke himself can’t help but take a few shots at John Ashcroft’s utter mismanagement of the balancing act between civil liberties and security measures—okay, so this one is not so surprising.

“We needed to do more than just arrest and kill people”

Clarke concludes that given 9/11 any president would have declared a war on terrorism. But he contends that only George W. and company would have launched an attack on a country that had no direct connection to the September 11th attacks and thereby “inflame islamic opinion and further radicalize muslim youth into heightened hatred of america, as we did by invading Iraq⁴.”

The most grim analysis in Against All Enemies comes from Clarke’s contention that September 11th represents an opportunity lost for America:

“We needed to do more than just arrest and kill people. We and our values needed to be more appealing to Muslims than al-Qaeda is….Far from addressing the popular appeal of the enemy that attaked us, Bush handed that enemy precisely what it wanted and needed: Proof that America was at war with Islam, that we were the new crusaders come to occupy Muslim land.”

And as George Bush’s most recent press conference attempts to obfuscate, that squandered opportunity is going to cost an untold number of lives lost as America’s War on Terror begins to look more and more to be nothing more than ‘America’s War on Reason’.

¹ From this, of course, stems the theory that the Bushmen’s hardon for ‘regime change’ in Iraq is a personal vendetta. Given the insular nature of the Bush regime and the parochial policy-making of its small-inner circle, this may not be such an eccentric perspective.

² Boy, am I ever looking forward to seeing Wolfowitz try and wiggle his way through testimony before the 9/11 Commission.

³ Since his departure, Clarke claims the counterterrorism department has become a revolving door, as resources formerly put into counter-terrorism have been pooled towards providing reasons to invade and occupy Iraq.

⁴ This quote is from audiobook version of the book and the punctuation is my own. BTW, Clarke does his own reading for the audiobook and is quite adept as a narrator.