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Clarke HAD to defend x42i's asprin factory fiasco

Here's what a Clarke contemporary had to say about him, around the time shortly before Clarke's retirrment.

Vince Cannistraro, former chief of operations at the CIA's Counterterrorism Center, said people at the agency "resented" Clarke "because he was a hands-on bureaucratic guerrilla who rode roughshod over the bureaucracies." Cannistraro acknowledged, however, that such an approach is sometimes useful.

Cannistraro knew Clarke during his tenure as deputy chief of intelligence and research at the National Security Council, where Clarke "often came up with questionable proposals for covert action," Cannistraro said. "He was contemptuous of the bureaucracy, and this attitude earned him few friends."

Prior to taking his post as cybersecurity adviser (see story), Clarke was responsible for recommending and planning the bombing of the Al Shifa plant in Sudan, which Cannistraro said was probably conducted on the basis of faulty intelligence.