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Originally posted by sgtclub
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.
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I didn't say that anyone was "obstructing his plan." The government is trying to do a lot of things at once, and people sometimes (e.g.) compete for scarce resources. And your hindsight about Congress "screaming for action" is completely fictive. When Clinton ordered the cruise missiles launched in an effort to take out OBL, he knew he'd take heat from the Republican Congress, which was outraged that he'd do something to distract from Monica Lewinsky.
Clarke says in his book that they could have done more.
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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.
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To some extent, you are correct. In hindsight, it's easy to say that more should have been done. The fact remains that Clinton took the problem more seriously than Bush.
