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Thursday, March 25, 2004Non-baseball: Clarke and the 9/11 Commission...Note: This post originally appeared on my political blog. I have archived it here for posterity's sake.
This whole Richard Clark thing just comes off as sour grapes to me. He freely admits that both Clinton and Bush were lacking in urgency in regard to al Qaeda (not to mention the first Bush), yet his attacks seem to be focused on the current administration. By the way, what do all three of these presidents have in common in their fight against terrorism? Clark was the antiterrorism chief under all three. Sounds like a condemnation of his own abilities rather then one of the White House. I know some will charge that it is the media, and not Clarke, that is using his book and testimony to focus attention on Bush, and that Clarke himself has shown no real partisan grudge here. However the very timing of his book is a focused attack on the president. Forget that it was released in an election cycle- the fact that it was released at all is a slap in the face. Time was that advisors to the president who were unceremoniously relieved of their duties would wait for the term to end to write their tell-all. Clark might not be an ideologue, but he certainly doesn't like Bush. Personally I see no reason not to take Clarke at his word. He seems like a man who knows what he's talking about. Did the last three administrations drop the ball on terrorism? Yes. Was al Qaeda high on the current administration's to-do list? No, and given the knowledge we had at the time it should not have been. The intelligence both Clinton and Bush were working under stated that al Qaeda was the single largest threat to US interests overseas, and posed virtually no threat to the US itself. Bush has done nothing wrong here, and any sensible person can see it. Clarke himself sees it. It was a simple case of underestimating the enemy- it has happened before and will happen again. Simply put there was no way to prevent 9/11. How many people really thought that terrorism was the number one threat to our nation on September 10, 2001? We were a sleeping nation, and unfortunately it takes a tragedy like 9/11 or Pearl Harbor to wake us. As for the political ramifications, they seem minimal. We're to far from November for this to still be a talking point, and rational voters are going to see that there was very little that could have been done to prevent 9/11. The panel will ultimately come to the conclusion that we have all come to; everyone is to blame- Bush, Clinton, Clarke, Republicans, Democrats, the CIA and the Pentagon. The administration will come out relatively unscathed due to their current efforts to fight terror. There is only one lasting impact I see from the controversy's fallout. This may deal these non-partisan experts (that are often holdovers from one administration to the next) a deathblow, and that may damage the war on terror in the long-run. As the wonderful Nora Lassen pointed out on Special Report w/ Brit Hume, if presidents don't feel they can trust these people, they will be less willing to keep them around. And with the obvious lapses in communication between intelligence agencies and the White House, these guys can be invaluable to the war on terror in the future. That seems to be the only lasting effect this will have. Tick-tock, Mr. Clarke- your 15 minutes are almost up... |
