And that would have somehow permitted the experts he would have brought on board to connect all the dots.....before 9/11?
I guess we'll never know will we !
Of course not! But we would not have Noman Mineta doing all he can to prevent pilots from being armed, refusing to profile, and wasting resources by insisting that no one can carry razorblades on an airplane, even though anyone who can think now realizes that the threat from razor blade weilding terrorists is no longer credible. No pilot, crew, or passengers will make the mistakes that were made on 9/11, with the now discredited assumption that the best thing to do was be a passive victim.
In addition, he wouldn't have Dick Clark now claiming that he did everything that could be done for eight years of the Clinton administration, so they are not responsible. But suddenly Bush, who started taking the threat seriously, was responsible for 9/11.
I have to admit, that I might have held Clarke on as well. After all, he was in the loop, a career civil servant.
The temptation of all that cash was just too much, I guess. I read a NYT article, I think, which explained that Clarke was *not* trying to cash in, because his first idea for a book was about cyperterrorism, until his agent convinced him there was a lot more money to be made by bashing the Bush administration. It sounded a lot more like a confession than a vindication to me.