July 25, 2004

Richard Clarke: Among the obvious truths that were documented but unarticulated were the facts that the Bush administration did little on terrorism before 9/11, and that by invading Iraq the administration has left us less safe as a nation...

Remember, because the "US mainstream news media" will not remind you, and, unfortunately, elected officials in the Democratic Party may not dare too, that the increasingly unhinged and incredibly shrinking _resident was against the establishment of the 9/11 Commission, then he tried to appoint Henry Kissinger as its chairman, then he fought every request for documents (e.g., the August 16 2001 PDB, etc.) or testimony (e.g., his own and Condescencia Rice's) that might shed light on his pre-9/11 failures, including trying to deep-six many thousands of Clinton Gore national security documents, and, of course, in the end, he was even afraid to testify alone and embarrassingly had the VICE _resident testify with him, and yes, they even tried to limit those present to Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton (who wimped out on the October Surprise so long ago), and refused to allow the 9/11 Commissioners to take their notes away with them...The LNS was waiting for Richard Clarke's public statement on the 9/11 Commission's final report, as anxiously as it waited for his book, and his sworn testimony...Here it is, and he has not let us down, nor has he let John O'Neill down...He has stayed true...Makes me wonder how long he can hold out at AnythingButSee (ABC) as their "national security analyst"? The LNS has one quibble, though: the American people "owe a debt of gratitute" to the 9/11 Families for standing up for the Truth when the 9/11 Commission did not, the American people "owe a debt of gratitute" to Richard Clarke for bringing REALITY to the proceedings, the American people "owe a debt of gratitute" to Sibel Edmonds and others who bravely came forward, the American people "owe a debt of gratitute" to John O'Neill for what he tried to do and sacrificed his life for, but the 9/11 Commission...Well, I expected more from Richard Ben-Veniste. Quite possibly he wrung as much out of the process as he could. But I see no reason to glorify this group of Beltwayistan insiders for gilding the naked truth of the Bush cabal's pre-9/11 incompetence (or perhaps "criminal negligence"?)

P.S. And, of course, John Ashcroft certainly owes a public apology to Jamie Gorelick, but it ain't gonna happen either.

Richard Clarke, New York Times: Americans owe the 9/11
commission a deep debt for its extensive exposition of
the facts surrounding the World Trade Center and
Pentagon attacks. Yet, because the commission had a
goal of creating a unanimous report from a bipartisan
group, it softened the edges and left it to the public
to draw many conclusions.
Among the obvious truths that were documented but unarticulated were the facts that the Bush administration did little on terrorism before 9/11, and that by invading Iraq the administration has left us less safe as a nation (Fortunately, opinion polls show that the majority of Americans have already come to these conclusions on their own. )

Repudiate the 9/11 Cover-Up and the Iraq War Lies,
Show Up for Democracy in 2004: Defeat Bush (again!)


http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/25/opinion/25clar.html?hp--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

July 25, 2004
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
Honorable Commission, Toothless Report
By RICHARD A. CLARKE

Americans owe the 9/11 commission a deep debt for its
extensive exposition of the facts surrounding the
World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks. Yet, because
the commission had a goal of creating a unanimous
report from a bipartisan group, it softened the edges
and left it to the public to draw many conclusions.

Among the obvious truths that were documented but
unarticulated were the facts that the Bush
administration did little on terrorism before 9/11,
and that by invading Iraq the administration has left
us less safe as a nation. (Fortunately, opinion polls
show that the majority of Americans have already come
to these conclusions on their own. )

What the commissioners did clearly state was that Iraq
had no collaborative relationship with Al Qaeda and no
hand in 9/11. They also disclosed that Iran provided
support to Al Qaeda, including to some 9/11 hijackers.
These two facts may cause many people to conclude that
the Bush administration focused on the wrong country.
They would be right to think that.

So what now? News coverage of the commission's
recommendations has focused on the organizational
improvements: a new cabinet-level national
intelligence director and a new National
Counterterrorism Center to ensure that our 15 or so
intelligence agencies play well together. Both are
good ideas, but they are purely incremental. Had these
changes been made six years ago, they would not have
significantly altered the way we dealt with Al Qaeda;
they certainly would not have prevented 9/11. Putting
these recommendations in place will marginally improve
our ability to crush the new, decentralized Al Qaeda,
but there are other changes that would help more.

First, we need not only a more powerful person at the
top of the intelligence community, but also more
capable people throughout the agencies - especially
the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central
Intelligence Agency. In other branches of the
government, employees can and do join on as mid- and
senior-level managers after beginning their careers
and gaining experience elsewhere. But at the F.B.I.
and C.I.A., the key posts are held almost exclusively
by those who joined young and worked their way up.
This has created uniformity, insularity,
risk-aversion, torpidity and often mediocrity.

The only way to infuse these key agencies with
creative new blood is to overhaul their hiring and
promotion practices to attract workers who don't
suffer the "failures of imagination" that the 9/11
commissioners repeatedly blame for past failures.

Second, in addition to separating the job of C.I.A.
director from the overall head of American
intelligence, we must also place the C.I.A.'s analysts
in an agency that is independent from the one that
collects the intelligence. This is the only way to
avoid the "groupthink" that hampered the agency's
ability to report accurately on Iraq. It is no
accident that the only intelligence agency that got it
right on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction was the
Bureau of Intelligence and Research at the State
Department - a small, elite group of analysts
encouraged to be independent thinkers rather than
spies or policy makers.

Analysts aren't the only ones who should be
reconstituted in small, elite groups. Either the
C.I.A. or the military must create a larger and more
capable commando force for covert antiterrorism work,
along with a network of agents and front companies
working under "nonofficial cover'' - that is, without
diplomatic protection - to support the commandos.

Even more important than any bureaucratic suggestions
is the report's cogent discussion of who the enemy is
and what strategies we need in the fight. The
commission properly identified the threat not as
terrorism (which is a tactic, not an enemy), but as
Islamic jihadism, which must be defeated in a battle
of ideas as well as in armed conflict.

We need to expose the Islamic world to values that are
more attractive than those of the jihadists. This
means aiding economic development and political
openness in Muslim countries, and efforts to stabilize
places like Afghanistan, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
Restarting the Israel-Palestinian peace process is
also vital.

Also, we can't do this alone. In addition to "hearts
and minds" television and radio programming by the
American government, we would be greatly helped by a
pan-Islamic council of respected spiritual and secular
leaders to coordinate (without United States
involvement) the Islamic world's own ideological
effort against the new Al Qaeda.

Unfortunately, because of America's low standing in
the Islamic world, we are now at a great disadvantage
in the battle of ideas. This is primarily because of
the unnecessary and counterproductive invasion of
Iraq. In pulling its bipartisan punches, the
commission failed to admit the obvious: we are less
capable of defeating the jihadists because of the Iraq
war.

Unanimity has its value, but so do debate and dissent
in a democracy facing a crisis. To fully realize the
potential of the commission's report, we must see it
not as the end of the discussion but as a partial
blueprint for victory. The jihadist enemy has learned
how to spread hate and how to kill - and it is still
doing both very effectively three years after 9/11.


Richard A. Clarke, former head of counterterrorism at
the National Security Council, is the author of
"Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror."

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Posted by richard at July 25, 2004 09:34 AM