CHANGING TUNES? Belgravia Dispatch notes a Clarke quote that isn’t getting much attention:
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, who retired from public service in February and is now a private consultant on security matters, has served every President since Ronald Reagan. He has won a reputation as a tireless advocate for action against Al Qaeda. 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.”
–Richard Clarke, per the August 4th 2003 issue of the New Yorker.
“Frankly,” he said, “I find it outrageous that the president is running for re-election on the grounds that he’s done such great things about terrorism. He ignored it. He ignored terrorism for months, when maybe we could have done something to stop 9/11. Maybe. We’ll never know.”
–Richard Clarke, on 60 Minutes, March 21, 2004.
Follow the link and read the whole thing. (Emphasis in original). I’m ready to believe that the Bush Administration dropped balls on terrorism before 9/11. Clarke seems to be grinding axes though.
And the big question is, what would today’s critics have had Bush do back then? What if Bush had invaded Afghanistan in February of 2001, going after Bin Laden in a serious way? He would have gotten the same kind of criticism he’s getting now — from many of the same people who are accusing him of not being preemptive enough against Bin Laden — for going after Saddam. And such an attack probably wouldn’t have stopped the 9/11 attacks, which were outside-Afghanistan efforts. And if the 9/11 attacks had happened anyway, those people would be blaming Bush’s targeting of Bin Laden for “triggering” the 9/11 attacks.
You want a revolution in antiterrorism? Fine. We’d all love to see the plan.
Where is it?
UPDATE: This Clarke statement would seem worthy of more attention.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Wonkette, as always, is amusing.