Lots of interesting revelations coming out of the publication of Richard Clarke’s new book, Against All Enemies… Basically he’s saying that the Bush administration, far from being “tough” on terrorism, were actually doing very little prior to 9/11:
“Frankly, I find it outrageous that the president is running for re-election on the grounds that he’s done such great things about terrorism. He ignored it. He ignored terrorism for months, when maybe we could have done something to stop 9/11. Maybe. We’ll never know. . . I think the way he has responded to al-Qaeda, both before 9/11 by doing nothing, and by what he’s done after 9/11 has made us less safe, absolutely. I think he’s done a terrible job on the war against terrorism.”
From an interview on “60 Minutes,” CBS, 21 March 2004
This is top-quality whistle-blowing which could cause serious damage to the Bush administration; Dick Clarke has been a senior terrorism advisor to 4 successive adminstrations, stretching right back past Daddy Bush to Reagan!
Of course, the Bush administration is now busily engaged in trying to rubbish his allegations, which suggests they’re feeling very ruffled by all this unwanted attention on their pre-9/11 ineptitude. There’s also a great interview where Clarke describes Cheney as an “attack dog” in Salon.
Incidentally, I discovered from Channel 4’s excellent Snowmail service that the Madrid train bombings occurred on 11 March 2004, which in the U.S. could be written as 3/11, and which is exactly 911 days after 9/11!