Book Review of Against All Enemies, by Richard Clarke

The odor of dishonesty hangs about Richard Clarke's book. At best it's a useless volume, at worst...

Let me make a few brief remarks about Clarke before I address what it says. As everybody knows, he is now front and center in the controversy surrounding 9-11 and the war in Iraq. Some people have attacked his character, and his motives. Motives are almost always unknowable, and it is therefore senseless to question them except in the case of politicians whose actions are often transparently dishonest and prompted by ulterior considerations. I can't possibly know Clarke's motives, but I can judge him by his public statements and his actions, and those are quite enough. As for character, I don't doubt that he served our country as best he could, but in this book he reveals himself to be a man unworthy of respect. In recent weeks he has said a great deal, and with one exception at the end of this review I will not comment on his oral statements. Oral remarks are inherently rife with problems because they are spontaneous and one can't edit them. With a book, however, one can go back and reconsider and rewrite many times over the course of weeks and months. I therefore take this book to be incomparably more important than anything else he has produced.

Now to Against All Enemies. On nearly the last page, 289, he reveals that "[t]his book is...from my memory." This after he has quoted other people scores of times. Throughout the book he says that Person X said such-and-such, and surrounds the alleged statement with quotation marks. To use quotation marks does not mean that the person in question said more-or-less such-and-such, but that he said precisely those words. Anything less than the precise, verbatim quotation of a statement means that quotation marks cannot be used. Clarke breaks this sacred rule constantly. In addition, virtually every person he quotes talks like virtually every other person. How odd. In my eyes this gross fault renders the entire book suspect.

There are two more huge problems with alleged statements that he quotes, and one immense problem in a scene that he refers to. The scene is the Principals Meeting that occurred on September 4, 2001. After Clarke repeatedly asking for such a meeting, a number of cabinet secretaries convened to talk about the al Qaeda problem. Clarke writes that "...Rumsfeld, who looked distracted throughout the session, took the Wolfowitz line that there were other terrorist concerns, like Iraq, and whatever we did on this al Qaeda business, we had to deal with other sources of terrorism." [pp. 237-238] Appearing on the Jim Lehrer Newshour recently, Rumsfeld said that he didn't attend that meeting. Rumsfeld, like all senior officials, keeps records of meetings and phone calls, and had Clarke or his publishers bothered to contact the Pentagon they could have determined that Rumsfeld wasn't in the meeting. But, as we have seen, Clarke is going by memory.

Now for the two dubious quotes. Clarke writes that "At a NATO summit in London early in the [first Bush administration] Baker had stunned me by coming to sit next to me in an auditorium, as I listened to President Bush's press conference. As Bush batted the reporter's questions, the Secretary of State provided me with a personal color commentary whispered in my ear: "Damn, he flubbed that answer... I told him how to handle that one... Oh, no, he'll never know how to deal with that..." [p. 69] At the time, Clarke was a career senior staffer in the State Department and obviously not an intimate of Baker. Regardless of what you think of Baker, he is the ultimate political professional and a man of tremendous self-control. Do you think he would be so wildly reckless as to whisper such remarks in Clarke's ear? Maybe, but I greatly doubt it.

Clarke writes of a meeting that occurred during the elder Bush's administration in the days before the first Gulf War. Attending the meeting were Brent Scowcroft as National Security Adviser, Dick Cheney as Secretary of Defense, Colin Powell as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Clarke, and others. The topic turned to WMD and the implications for the war. It comes Powell's turn to speak, and Clarke quotes him saying "I just think chemical weapons are goofy." [p. 162] Powell always takes pains to appear dignified, which is understandable considering he is a black man who came of age when Jim Crow was alive and discriminating. Do you really think that he would make such a statement in that company just as a huge war was about to start? Maybe, but I greatly doubt it. Clarke begins his book with a lengthy account of his actions on 9-11. Unfortunately, he has read too many bad novels and he attempts to depict himself as a man of action, dashing hither and thither, pulling it all together, the man to whom everybody turns in the moment of crisis. As a result, his account is utterly devoid of substantive analysis. He again provides us with plenty of his dubious quotes. You will learn nothing from the chapter. After this foray into pulp fiction, Clarke writes at length about America's confrontation with al Qaeda as it developed during the 90s. He provides few insights and little new information. His analysis is flyweight. A rented hack could produce a better account doing no mor e than clipping from the New York Times and pasting where appropriate.

Clarke thinks that Clinton did a lot to stop al Qaeda and Bush did nothing. Scattered through the book is a series of statements that, when put together, reveal a very different picture. Clarke details Saddam's attempt to assassinate ex-President Bush in Kuwait in 1993. He says that Iraqi intelligence placed a bomb in a Land Cruiser, a bomb large enough to kill "everything up to four hundred yards away." By plain dumb luck the bomb was discovered by a Kuwaiti cop, and Clinton had to decide what to do about it. Clark writes that "[Secretary of State] Christopher argued strongly on legal grounds that the [target] list be limited to one facility, the Iraqi intelligence headquarters. He also wanted it hit on Saturday night, to minimize casualties. Christopher won." [pp. 80-81]

In 1993 the World Trade Center was bombed, and the culprits turned out to be al Qaeda, which at the time was a new organization. Clarke says that "[a]lthough neither CIA nor FBI had yet heard of al Qaeda... the Clinton team, from the President down, was seized with the issue by 1994." [p. 90] In light of his later opposition to going to war against Saddam, it's odd to see Clarke write that "[m]ore than anyone, I wanted the World Trade Center to be an Iraqi operation so we could justify reopening the war with Iraq." [p. 96] He never explains his change of heart.

On August 7, 1998, al Qaeda bombed America's embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, causing relatively few American casualties but in all 257 people died and over 5000 were wounded. Clarke depicts Clinton and his team as being intensely concerned with the al Qaeda threat as it seemed to grow during the 90s. The odd point is that Clarke never really draws certain obvious conclusions. In the wake of the 1998 embassy bombings, Clinton launched cruise missile strikes against al Qaeda targets in Afghanistan and Sudan. Clarke correctly points out that many Republicans criticized him harshly for this, in part because the strikes occurred at about the same time as Kenneth Starr's investigators were to question Clinton about his involvement with Monica Lewinsky. Clarke writes "...but no one looked at Bush's 2003 war on Iraq as a ÔWag the Dog' move even though the Ôcrisis' was manufactured and Bush's political adviser Karl Rove was telling Republicans to Ôrun on the war'." [p. 186] Let's consider the following statements.

Clarke states that "... [Clinton's] intent was very clear: kill bin Laden. I believe that those in CIA who claim the authorizations were insufficient or unclear are throwing up that claim as an excuse to cover the fact that they were pathetically unable to accomplish the mission." [p. 204] "[Clinton] had given the CIA unprecedented authority to go after bin Laden personally and al Qaeda, but had not taken steps when they did little or nothing...In the absence of a bigger provocation to silence his critics, Clinton thought he could do no more. Nonetheless, he put in place the plans and programs that allowed America to respond to the big attacks when they did come, sweeping away the barriers to action." [p. 225]

In addition to huge problems coordinating the various Federal agencies, Clarke points out that "[w]hether it was catching war criminals in Yugoslavia or terrorists in Africa and the Middle East, it was the same story. The White House wanted action. The senior military did not and made it almost impossible for [Clinton] to overcome their objections." [p. 145] "This institutional response [by the CIA] was in sharp contrast with George Tenet's personal fixation with al Qaeda... He testified before Congressional committees that al Qaeda was the major threat to the United States." [p. 210] "General Shelton [then the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff] and General Zinni [then the chief of Central Command which is responsible for the Middle East] looked on the idea of regular strikes against Afghanistan as another burden on an already stretched military." [p. 202]

After the USS Cole was bombed in Yemen in October 2000, "Sheehan [one of Clarke's senior staffers] was particularly outraged that the highest-ranking U.S. military officer [ Shelton] had not even suggested that the U.S. employ existing retaliation plans against al Qaeda." [p. 224]

What picture is Clarke painting? Is it not obvious that America was dealing with an unprecedented threat, a threat that was very hard to attack? That at the time most people did not want to go to great lengths to confront it? The military and the CIA were reluctant to do much and Clinton was unwilling to issue the order: "Go kill bin Laden and his friends now."

Then comes January, 2001 and George W. Bush takes office. On the first page of his preface Clarke makes it clear that he holds Bush and his senior associates in utter contempt. On that page (ix) he writes: "Many thought that the Bush Administration was doing a good job of [sic] fighting terrorism when, actually, the administration had squandered the opportunity to eliminate al Qaeda and instead strengthened our enemies by going off on a completely unnecessary tangent, the invasion of Iraq. A new al Qaeda has emerged and is growing stronger, in part because of our own actions and inactions."

What does Clarke think of Dick Cheney? He has "strong, almost extreme beliefs. He had been one of the five most radical conservatives in Congress." [p. 19] And Mrs. Cheney? "Like her husband, she was a right-wing ideologue." [p. 18] How does Clarke regard Bush's senior advisers? "...[M]ost senior officials in the administration did not know the term [al Qaeda] when we briefed them in January, 2001." What about Condoleeza Rice? "As I briefed Rice on al Qaeda, her facial expressions gave me the impression that she had never heard the term before." [p. 229]

Clarke states that Rice didn't like the way the National Security Council had been structured, and she downgraded Clarke's position. No longer was he a member of the Principal's Committee -- that is, the most senior officials -- and he would report to the deputy secretaries. [p. 230] During the Clinton Administration Clarke had enjoyed frequent face-to-face meetings with Clinton, now he would rarely see Bush, who would frequently see George Tenet. [p. 235] What took place as 2001 went along? What information and warnings did Clarke receive? He says that "[b]y late June, Tenet and I were convinced that a major series of attacks was about to come. ÔIt's my sixth sense, but I feel it coming. This is going to be the big one,' Tenet told me." [p.235] But what was it going to be? "Now CIA's analysis said the attacks were most likely going to be in Israel or Saudi Arabia... We considered a broad public warning, but we had no proof or specificity. What would [a warning] say? "A terrorist group you have never heard of may be planning to do something somewhere'?" In a meeting with CIA and FBI at that time Tenet said "You heard CIA say it would probably be in Israel or Saudi Arabia. Maybe. But maybe it will be here. Just because there is no evidence that says it will be here does not mean it will be overseas." [p.236] He adds: "What was buried in CIA and FBI... [t]hey had specific information about individual terrorists from which one could have deduced what was about to happen. None of that information got to me or the White House. It apparently did not even make it up the FBI chain to Dale Watson, the Executive Assistant Director in charge of counterterrorism." [p. 237]

One theme that runs throughout the book is the performance of the FBI. In Clarke's account this agency is worse than incompetent, it is a veritable black hole. In this Clarke is more believable. In 1995 the Japanese cult Aum Shinrikyo manufactured nerve gas and staged an attack in the Tokyo subway system. Clarke was informed of this immediately and wanted to know if the cult was present in the US. He writes that "[b]y now I had enough experience with CIA and FBI to doubt they would ever have heard of the Aum." [p. 156] He was right. He quotes a conversation with Dale Watson, the head of the FBI's counterterrorism effort, saying on 9-11: "'We got the passenger manifests from the airlines. We recognize some names, Dick. They're al Qaeda.'" [p. 13] In other words, the various Federal agencies were so inept and so hemmed in by antiquated rules that the airlines couldn't automatically send their manifests to the FBI to be checked against lists of known terrorists.

Just as he is contemptuous of Bush's team and the war in Iraq, Clarke is contemptuous of Bush's actions in Afghanistan: "Bush's efforts were slow and small... he initially sent in only a handful of Special Forces." [p. 245] "The late-November operation did not include any effort by U.S. forces to seal the border with Pakistan, snatch the al Qaeda leadership, or cut off the al Qaeda escape." [p. 275] Then in the lead-in to the war against Saddam, "U.S. Special Forces who were trained to speak Arabic, the language of al Qaeda, had been pulled out of Afghanistan and sent to Iraq." [p. 276] Did Clarke provide Bush with a war plan on 9-12? No. As Ivo Daalder and James Lindsay point out in their excellent book America Unbound, the only adviser who had a plan turned out to be Tenet. So after all those years Clarke had nothing to offer in the wake of the worst terrorist attack in history. In my opinion the campaign in Afghanistan was one of the most remarkable ever waged. Using totally unconventional means and making alliances with new friends, America routed a deadly enemy in three months while suffering virtually no casualties. Besides, it's not the president's job to move battalions around a battlefield on the other side of the planet. That was the job of General Franks and his staff. America did indeed fail to seal off the escape route to Pakistan, but responsibility for that failure rests much more with Franks than anybody else. As far as Arabic-speaking Special Forces go, the region of Afghanistan and Pakistan in which the Taliban and al Qaeda hide is a Pashto-speaking region. Speaking Arabic is always handy but of limited usefulness in the lands of the Pashtun. Clarke obviously thinks that Bush and his team are a bunch of dunces. He has every right to his opinion, but to say that Rice and the others had never even heard of al Qaeda is absurd. The group was splashed all over the media constantly after the bombings in Africa. Anybody who keeps up with current events even casually had heard of them. As for Bush's actions before 9-11, Clarke's own words make it clear that Bush had no information to act on. Telling Bush that something bad was going to happen somehow somewhere and at some time is not very useful.

Near the end of the book Clarke launches into a repetitive rant against the war in Iraq. He repeatedly states that in his opinion the war in Iraq has strengthened al Qaeda. For this contention he provides not a shred of evidence. He doesn't provide any information at all about how al Qaeda was formed, how it recruited its members, how it plans its operations, how it communicates and funds its terrorists. He says nothing about their remaining cells and capabilities. One may say that stating this information could help al Qaeda, but that reminds me of an episode from the first Gulf War in which a reporter asked a military briefer what the weather was like in Baghdad. The briefer refused to answer. As if Saddam couldn't have one of his flunkies stick his head out the window to find out! Al Qaeda knows about al Qaeda, and providing the reader with a few clues would hardly damage our efforts. I can only conclude that Clarke can produce no evidence to support his contentions. He also makes a big deal about how the Department of Homeland Security is toothless. You might think that with all his experience he would have some ideas about how to fix it, but you would be wrong. Clarke has almost nothing to suggest.

Rather than invade Iraq, Clarke would have preferred that we solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as if we haven't been trying to do just that for more than fifteen years. He suggests "going to Saudi Arabia and addressing the Muslim people in a moving appeal for religious tolerance." [p. 245] He also calls for the creation of a Muslim ideology to counter the creed of al Qaeda but he hasn't any suggestions for what that ideology might be or why Arabs would pay any attention to such ideas coming from Washington. [pp. 262-264] This sort of naivetŽ would be irrelevant were it to come from some woolly columnist at The Nation, but for it to come from the man who headed our counterterrorism effort for years and who apparently doesn't speak Arabic....

A couple other points are worth noting. Writing in the March 28, 2004 edition of the Sunday Telegraph, the splendid Edward Luttwak pointed out that our best chance to kill bin Laden probably occurred in February, 1999, when bin Laden was partying in Kahandaron with some royals from the United Arab Emirates. They were probably giving him money, and we monitored the situation. Did Clarke recommend attacking bin Laden? No, he opposed it. Luttwak states that he had just received the red carpet treatment in the UAE, and he was apparently concerned that some of the royals might get hurt.

In his blog maintained on The New Republic's website, Gregg Easterbrook noted on March 30, 2004, that Clarke resigned from the government a month before the Iraq war started, and that Clarke held his tongue. He signed on as a consultant to ABC News, and in his appearance on March 21 he was asked about the war. Nothing in his remarks would suggest that he opposed it. Did he at any time or in any forum state his opposition to the war? Apparently not.

In his recent appearance on Meet the Press, Clarke stated that "[Clinton] did something, and President Bush did nothing prior to September 11. I think they deserve a failing grade." As if Bush, in less than 8 months in office, could have reached down and reformed the FBI, the CIA, the FAA, the INS, airline security... Lastly, in his book's opening paragraph, Clarke writes: "From the inside of the White House, the State Department, and the Pentagon for thirty years, I disdained those who departed government and quickly rushed out to write about it." Well, this book may cause his self-esteem to drop, but the royalties should pay for a good shrink and a sympathetic support group for hypocrites.

Geoffrey Riklin is a writer living in Detroit. A graduate of the University of Michigan, he also attended the London School of Economics, and has lived recently in Chile and Spain.

In light of his later opposition to going to war against Saddam, it's odd to see Clarke write that "[m]ore than anyone, I wanted the (1993) World Trade Center to be an Iraqi operation so we could justify reopening the war with Iraq." [p. 96] He never explains his change of heart.

Lots of important people had this "change of heart." Interesting...

Clarke and his Clintonoid ilk ignored the warnings of Yossef Bodansky and others for 8 freakin' years. The left love to pie people they don't like - maybe we need to do the same; hmmmmm.... is he doing any book signing tours? ;)

No explanation needed, because the changes of heart occurred due to the change in which political party occupied the White House. In 1998, the Dems willinging signed onto the Iraq Liberation Act, which Clinton signed into law, and which made regime change in Iraq the policy of the United States. In 2002, a scant four years later, the Dems were all opposed to regime change in Iraq. Different president from a different political party equals change of heart. See how easy it is for a Democrat?!

Thanks for the post and the ping.

So, what we've got here is a colorless, uninspired bureaucrat without an idea in his pretty little head, who after thirty years of punching the clock, decided to grasp the main chance.

I think you're being too ideological. We're talking about a bureaucratic careerist here. I think that by 2002, Clarke, who had been demoted by the new Administration, saw a better deal for himself with the Democrats.

I think you are much too easy on little Dicky Clarke.

Who cares about his motives. Why not just cut to the chase: Clarke is a traitor.

I hope he spends the rest of his miserable, worthless, life explaining to anyone who will listen, "I am not a traitor! I am not a traitor!"

What a valuable post!

Shermy and I had been discussing what seemed to be a fundamental disconnect: i.e., the blatant anti-Bush bias which discredits the author, utterly collapses when the book itself is thoroughly parsed. I thought maybe it was just us, but this reviewer spotted it, too. Weird.

It is worth reading (a borrowed copy... there is no need for us to fund Clarke's post-retirement tour of gay resorts) because it is the Demo game plan on security issues for the election, which is paying far greater dividends than they had dared hope. Brilliant campaign: waking up Vietnamese ghosts and pinning the Nixon donkey-tail on good ole GWB.

As far as Clarke goes, WFB hit the nail on the head with his psychological profile (which I read on Drudge). Check it out., (Forgive me for not providing a link ...doing dial-up with AOL on a borrowed unit. Would some one please tell AOL to lie down? Nowadays, it's a bad idea that's friggin dead!)

Also interesting to note the "still-classified" August 2001 reports about al-Qaeda's threats to damage the US has been "leaked" to all the major news outlets-complete with anti-Bush "spin".

Gee ! Wonder how THAT happened ??

No one is asking you to read or study Clarke's book. That's the purpose of a book review. Reading a book review saves you the trouble of reading the book. Get it? Maybe not.

I think your sarcasm detector may be in need of a check-up. :=)

Shermy and I had been discussing what seemed to be a fundamental disconnect: i.e., the blatant anti-Bush bias which discredits the author, utterly collapses when the book itself is thoroughly parsed.

To me, it smacks of a story that switched directions 180 degrees somewhere close to the time when the manuscript was completed. The publishing schedule didn't permit time to go back and smooth out that fundamental disconnect you mention, Kenny.

Perhaps Clarke had originally intended to be largely positive toward the Bush administration, but got a "better offer" late in the process of producing his book.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.