| "The [Bush] administration has
squandered the opportunity to eliminate al Qaeda....A
new al Qaeda has emerged and is growing stronger, in
part because of our own actions and inactions. It is
in many ways a tougher opponent than the original
threat we faced before September 11, and we are not
doing what is necessary to make America safe from that
threat."
No one has more authority to make that claim than
Richard Clarke, the former counterterrorism czar for
both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. The one person
who knows more about Usama bin Laden and al Qaeda than
anyone else in this country, he has devoted two
decades of his professional life to combating
terrorism.
Richard Clarke served seven presidents and worked
inside the White House for George H.W. Bush, Bill
Clinton, and George W. Bush until he resigned in March
2003. He knows, better than anyone, the hidden
successes and failures of the Clinton years. He knows,
better than anyone, why we failed to prevent 9/11.
He knows, better than anyone, how President Bush
reacted to the attack and what happened behind the
scenes in the days that followed. He knows whether or
not Iraq presented a terrorist threat to the United
States and whether there were hidden costs to the
invasion of that country.
Most disturbing of all are Clarke's revelations
about the Bush administration's lack of interest in al
Qaeda prior to September 11. From the moment the Bush
team took office and decided to retain Clarke in his
post as the counterterrorism czar, Clarke tried to
persuade them to take al Qaeda as seriously as had
Bill Clinton.
For months, he was denied the opportunity even to
make his case to Bush. He encountered key officials
who gave the impression that they had never heard of
al Qaeda; who focused incessantly on Iraq; who even
advocated long-discredited conspiracy theories about
Saddam's involvement in previous attacks on the United
States.
Clarke was the nation's crisis manager on 9/11,
running the Situation Room -- a scene described here
for the first time -- and then watched in dismay at
what followed. After ignoring existing plans to attack
al Qaeda when he first took office, George Bush made
disastrous decisions when he finally did pay
attention.
Coming from a man known as one of the hard-liners
against terrorists, Against All Enemies is both a
powerful history of our two-decades-long confrontation
with terrorism and a searing indictment of the current
administration.
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