Quote:
Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Richard Clarke was the nation's senior counterterrorism official under both Clinton and Bush, so if you want to ignore his account of what happened, you'd better have some serious authority. Clinton was personally involved with Clarke's job in a way that Bush was not. Because of the bureaucratic design of our government, Clarke often ran into obstacles presented by other parts of the government doing their own thing. Clarke's relationship with Clinton and other senior officials helped him get around these, sometimes. When Bush came in, Clarke was demoted, reducing his effectiveness. This was done because Bush had other priorities, like missile defense. This is why nothing happened with Clarke's recommendation between when Bush took office and 9/11.
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Clinton was the fucking president. Who in the government was obstructing his high priority plan to fight terrorism? Certainly not the GOP led Congress, parts of which were screaming for action throughout the 1990s. Did Clinton go to Congress and ask for a declaration of war? Did he do anything of note by Executive Order? This excuse just doesn't ring true, notwithstanding Clarke's accusations in the book.
My take is that the Clinton administration was passifying him, but did not intend to raise it to the level that Clarke thought appropriate, and Bush failed to do even that. Turns out that Clarke was right and both Administrations screwed the pooch.
