[BigWaveBetty]

Do you think testimony from our side this week at the 9/11 comm. will make Richard Clarke's book hit the bargin barrel sooner rather than later? Help or hurt Kerry?

...Clarke was known for pounding the table to urge his counterparts at the CIA, FBI and Pentagon to do more about Al Qaeda. But he did not have much luck, in part because in both the Clinton and early Bush administrations, the top leadership did not back up Clarke and demand results.

A White House official countered that the true fault lay with Clarke for failing to propose an effective plan to go after Al Qaeda. On Jan. 25, this official told NEWSWEEK, Clarke submitted proposals to "roll back" Al Qaeda in Afghanistan by boosting military aid to neighboring Uzbekistan, getting the CIA to arm its Predator spy planes and increasing funding for guerrillas fighting the Taliban. There was no need for a high-level meeting on terrorism until Clarke came up with a better plan, this official told NEWSWEEK. The official quoted President Bush as telling Condi Rice, "I'm tired of swatting flies." Bush, this official says, wanted an aggressive scheme to take bin Laden out.

...In the meeting, says Clarke, Wolfowitz cited the writings of Laurie Mylroie, a controversial academic [Isikoff fails to mention Mylroie served as an adviser on Iraq to the 1992 Clinton presidential campaign.] who had written a book advancing an elaborate conspiracy theory that Saddam was behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Clarke says he tried to refute Wolfowitz. "We've investigated that five ways to Friday, and nobody [in the government] believes that," Clarke recalls saying. "It was Al Qaeda. It wasn't Saddam." A spokesman for Wolfowitz described Clarke's account as a "fabrication." Wolfowitz always regarded Al Qaeda as "a major threat," said this official. Link

She [Mylroie]thinks that Pollack, like many other former and current State Department employees and intelligence community members, intentionally tried to downplay Iraqis ties too terrorism, positing that "once the danger of Iraqi terrorist activity was admitted, the inescapable implication followed that the Clinton administration, including Pollack himself, had turned a blind eye to a major threat." Link

Clinton had to ignore it, real war is just too risky on one's legacy.

Wessie Clark was asked by Kerry to comment on this 'contraversy' on Fox News! Yikes, could I be getting my wish, a Kerry/Clark ticket?

[Timeout]

Charming sign from yesterday's SF anti-war rally:

[Endeavor]

I'm on the last chapter of "Losing Bin Laden" - I put it down to come down and watch 60 minutes and Clarke. Clarke is practically the hero of the book. Bush may well have felt that he needed his own assessment and plan to go after Bin Laden and may not have felt Clarke was as effective as he could have been due to his temperment - he apparently pissed a lot of people off and so in typical, yet sad, bureaucratic fashion, they purposely sabbatoged his plans. This plus Clinton's refusal to take Bin Laden seriously made any attempt to get Bin Laden pretty futile. Couple that with Gen Hugh Shelton lying to Clinton by telling him they'd have to have a big footprint to go in after Bin Laden (this was Shelton's way of blowing things out of proportion because Shelton and some of his cronies on the Jt. Chiefs refused to send a special ops team to do the job) makes me amazed that Clarke kept pitching given the crap he had to overcome.

That said, I'm sure he has a political persuasion and it ain't our direction. He was obsessed with Bin Laden (rightfully so) and would probably think any foreign policy that wasn't focused solely on OBL was pointless. We know that Bush had ordered a full plan of attack for OBL and that it was put on his desk on 9/10 or 9/11.

None of the Clinton people wanted to believe Iraq was involved with anything because that would have meant they'd have to do something about Saddam - Clinton was so ineffectual at recognizing the need to meet evil with might, that we are left with a truly vast terror network which is well-financed and trained and will go on to inflict as much pain to us as possible even after Al Zahwahiri and OBL are long captured/killed.

That will be Clinton's legacy. Perhaps we should send "Losing Bin Laden" to the Clinton Liebrary.