Against All Enemies

Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror--What Really Happened is a 2004 book by Richard Clarke, criticizing past and present presidential administrations for the way they handled the war on terror. The book focused much of its criticism on President Bush, charging that he failed to take sufficient action to protect the country in the elevated-threat period before the September 11, 2001 attacks and for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, which Clarke feels greatly hampered the war on terror.

Clarke argues that he made numerous urgent requests for a meeting about dealing with terrorism, had CIA Director George Tenet include numerous details about Al-Qaida in daily briefings, found an unprecedented level of terrorist "chatter" before September 11, but still Bush refused to go to high alert, as President Clinton had done in a similar situation. Had they gone to high alert, Clarke would likely have found that the FBI had photos of two of the hijackers. They could have tracked the two down, interrogated them, and perhaps stopped the September 11 attacks.

Soon after 9/11, he says that defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld wanted to bomb Iraq, even though there was no evidence of their involvement, because they had more "good targets" than Afghanistan, which was actually involved.

Clarke also says that on September 12, 2001, President Bush "testily" asked him to try to find evidence that Saddam Hussein was connected to the terrorist attacks. (After an initial denial, the White House has since conceded that the meeting took place.) In response he wrote a report stating there was absolutely no evidence of Iraqi involvement and got it signed by all relevant agencies (the FBI, the CIA, etc.). The paper was quickly returned by a deputy with a note saying "Please update and resubmit," apparently unshown to the President.

Clarke also recalls a meeting where Paul Wolfowitz expressed doubt that Osama bin Laden could have carried out the attacks on September 11 without state sponsorship -- a theory based on the writings of Laurie Mylroie that Clarke says has been exhaustively investigated and disproven.

But perhaps most damagingly, Clarke claims that the administration has done "a terrible job" fighting terrorism, even since September 11. In particular, he feels the 2003 invasion of Iraq played right into Osama bin Laden's hands. For years, bin Laden had been producing propaganda saying that the US wants to invade and occupy an oil-rich middle eastern country, which was essentially validated by the US invasion of Iraq. As a result, says Clarke, it's not surprising that Al-Qaida and its offshoots are having much greater success recruiting new members.

Furthermore, he feels the war has taken resources from the more important fight: stopping Al-Qaida in Afghanistan and around the world. He points out that had his plan been followed when he first presented it, Al-Qaida could have been essentially eliminated. But since his plan was not followed, and Osama was essentially ignored as we've invaded Iraq, Al-Qaida has grown incredibly in strength and number, and is now going to be difficult to stop.

His statements seem to be backed up by Bob Woodward's Bush At War, where he quotes Bush as saying "I know (Osama bin Laden) was a menace... but I didn't feel that sense of urgency." Clarke has been backed up by testimony of former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, the National Security Council's Flynt Leverett, and Clarke's deputy, Roger Cressey.

Clarke also described many of these events in his almost 20 hours of testimony under oath before the 9-11 Commission, a portion in its public hearings.

Responses from the Bush administration

On March 22, 2004, vice president Dick Cheney claimed that Clarke was "out of the loop" in the fight against terror. Critics pointed out that if Clarke, who was appointed to oversee counterterrorism efforts by Rice, was out of the loop then the administration had an embarrassingly small loop. Condoleezza Rice later contradicted this, claiming the opposite: Clarke was the loop, so any failure in terrorism-preparedness was his. Later, in a direct response to Cheney's statement, she said "I would not use the word 'out of the loop,'... He was in every meeting that was held on terrorism."

Press Secretary Scott McClellan claimed that Clarke timed the publication of his book in order to have an impact on the upcoming election. Clarke pointed out that his book had been finished since last year, it was only released now because the White House took months to review it for classified information.

Some alleged that Clarke had published the book to win a spot in a possible John Kerry administration. Clarke responded by swearing under oath that he did not want another job in the government and would not accept one.

Others pointed to the fact that Clarke taught a class with Randy Beers, an advisor to John Kerry. Clarke explained that he was a long-time friend of Beers, who had also worked extensively in the government on counterterrorism for Bush and other administrations, and would not give up his friendship simply because his friend had a new job.

Another major criticism of Clarke was that he had been more supportive of the Bush administration when he worked there as a special advisor to the President. Fox News Channel released a transcript (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,115085,00.html) from an August 2002 briefing that Clarke gave to reporters while he was still working for the White House, as background (meaning not for attribution). In it Clarke says that "there was no plan on al Qaeda that was passed from the Clinton administration to the Bush administration," and otherwise puts the Bush administration in a more favorable light.

Questioned about this apparent inconsistency, Clarke said the differences were "really a matter here of emphasis and tone. I mean, what you're suggesting, perhaps, is that as special assistant to the president of the United States when asked to give a press backgrounder I should spend my time in that press backgrounder criticizing him. I think that's somewhat of an unrealistic thing to expect." [1] (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/24/politics/24CND-PTEX.html?pagewanted=print)

The White House initially claimed that Bush never set foot in the Situation Room on September 12, and so could not have told Clarke to find evidence of Iraq's involvement. But after additional witnesses confirmed the story and critics pointed out that it was rather embarrassing for the President to have never entered the Situation Room on such an important day, the White House retracted this claim.

References

• ISBN 0743260244 March 2004, The Free Press (a division of Simon & Schuster)